Silver Dragon
by deathlygod
Summary: A mysterious girl is found by the Straw Hat pirates in the catacombs of Enies Lobby. Chaos ensues as more and more about this girl's past is revealed. Who is she and what is her relationship with the infamous "Surgeon of Death"?
1. Chapter 1

Her head was spinning. All the screams and shouts around her moulded together and became muffled. But she wouldn't stop. No matter what came her way, a sword slash, a punch, even canon fire wasn't enough. No, it's not that she wouldn't stop; it's that she couldn't stop. She knew what would happen if she stopped fighting. She would crumble away, until nothing remained.

Then, from far away, she heard a familiar voice, "That's quite enough."

She knew that voice from somewhere, but who was it? She looked at the owner of the voice but couldn't see whoever it was clearly. Actually, she couldn't see anything clearly. She stumbled towards the voice for a moment before tears began to fill her eyes. How could she let this happen?

"I think you've had enough for one day," she heard the voice say as she tumbled to the ground as all strength left her body. She could feel exhaustion begin to overtake her senses as she fought to keep her eyes open. But sleep overwhelmed her, and everything went black.

* * *

There was a hell of a racket going on outside as Anka wriggled in her shackles, very eager to get out of the dingy prison cell. The dim light provided by the sparsely placed candles had gotten her feeling quite glum and the cell had made her claustrophobic. The dirt and grime that had filled the cracks in the wall and floor had also made her visibly uncomfortable as she tried to avoid touching it.

"What the hell is going on out there?" she muttered to no one in particular. She attempted to pull away from the musty wall, but the chains held her in place and created more red marks on her tanned skin. She gritted her teeth in frustration, trying again to pry away the metal that held her in place.

Just when she had given up, she saw a moss-headed swordsman walking in the dark hallway located just in front of her cell. He rubbed his head and muttered something under his breath. To her, the swordsman looked a bit dim, but he would have to do.

"Hey you," Anka said, leaning forward as much as the chains allowed her to.

The tanned man turned to her and let out a disgruntled, "Huh."

"Yeah," she nodded eagerly, "could you unlock this cell? The keys are just over there," she gestured to some rusty pieces of metal lying on the top of a rotting wooden desk.

"And why would I do that?" he said in a gruff voice.

She pondered this for a brief moment before she spoke, "How about we make a deal, you give me something I want, and I'll return the favour." Anka was quite famous for this way of thinking. She would often think in terms of "a favour for a favour" and would never do anything for anyone out of the goodness of her heart.

The swordsman contemplated his situation for some time, long enough that Anka began to get impatient. Finally, he made a move towards the keys and quickly unlocked the cell and her handcuffs. The moment the chains hit the floor, she was up on her feet, rolling her neck and stretching out her limbs. She sighed in relief. She had only been locked up for about a day but the filth of the prison had worn on her already miniscule patience.

"These are kairoseki handcuffs. You're a devil fruit user?"

"What do you think?" she replied quickly.

The swordsman looked at the girl with a hint of confusion. His expression neutralized as he seemed to lose interest. "So, my favour," he said finally.

She looked at him expectantly. She intended to honour his request, as was part of their agreement. Unlike many others she had met during her journeys, Anka had always come through with her end of the bargain. This system had been so deeply ingrained in her that the thought of leaving without complying with his request hadn't even crossed her mind. Her curiosity at what the swordsman would ask of her was just an added incentive to stay.

"How do I get to the higher floors?"

There was a moment of silence as Anka stared at the man incredulously, "You're _lost_?"

The man's face contorted with rage, "Shut up! Just show me where to go."

There was another brief moment of silence before Anka shrugged, "Alright, I guess it's the least I could do," she said, albeit a bit reluctantly, and ran off, gesturing for the swordsman to follow.

They both ran down the dim, mildewed corridor with Anka leading the way. Neither of them said a word until a few minutes later when the moss-headed man decided to break the silence.

"So, who are you?"

Anka had been slightly surprised at the abruptness of the question. She managed to contain her questioning glance at the sudden curiosity the man showed. "Not important," she replied curtly.

"What? Not even a name?"

She sighed, "Anka. What about you?"

"Roronoa Zoro."

She stared back at him in disbelief, " _The_ Roronoa Zoro, the pirate hunter?" she quickly returned her gaze to the path ahead of her as to avoid any sudden misplaced bricks or debris. She had heard of the famous pirate through the newspaper, but seeing Roronoa here had caught her off guard.

"Yeah," he said impatiently.

"What are you doing in Enies Lobby?"

"It's none of your business," he replied, "What _you_ doing here?"

"It's none of your business," she mimicked, attempting to replicate his voice. Behind her, she could hear him emit a low growl. She smirked with satisfaction.

After roaming the seemingly endless halls of the underground cellar, the pair had found a large doorway leading to the upper floors. Zoro turned to face Anka and muttered some parting words of thanks. With a mischievous smirk and gleam in her eyes, she bade farewell to the hopeless oaf and continued forward in her escape.

She ran down the seemingly endless halls of the building, she had to get out of here, and fast. Who knew when they would realize that she had escaped? She approached a split in her path and came to a screeching halt in front of it. Should she go right or left? She had a general idea of the possible escape routes but being a prisoner, they didn't exactly give her the grand tour of the place.

Then suddenly, from down one of the corridors, she could hear a soft rumbling noise. She peered down the empty hall but there was nothing there. She heard the sound getting louder. What the hell was going on? She squinted and looked again, this time there was something there, but she couldn't quite make it out. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. As it approached, the rumbling got louder as well. Then she realized; it was coming straight for her. She rushed to get out of the way but didn't make it in time and it hit her straight on. It felt like getting hit by a missile.

She blinked profusely and looked at what hit her. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. The thing that hit her, was a boy. He looked up at her with an innocent look.

"Huh? Who are you?"

She was flabbergasted. A _boy_ just hit her in the side and made her crash into the wall with enough force to leave an Anka shaped imprint on the white bricks. Taking a closer look at the boy, she could see that he had a straw hat lying on his back and a scar underneath his eye. Her eyes widened again.

Not only was she randomly assaulted by a boy, but that boy was Monkey D. Luffy, captain of the Straw Hat Pirates. This was ridiculous.

"You're Straw Hat Luffy," she said dumbly, "Ahh, sorry, I'm Anka," she quickly introduced herself.

"Hey, do you know how to get to the Gates of Justice? I have to save Robin!"

It took a moment for her to properly process his statement; she couldn't believe what he was saying. He wanted to go _towards_ the Gates of Justice? Any criminal in their right mind would be trying to get _away_ from the Gates of Justice. And who was this Robin person? She took a moment to arrange her thoughts and calm herself. She also had to convince herself that this wasn't some strange dream, this was happening.

Finally, she had calmed down enough to ask him a question,"Hey, when you say Robin, you don't mean Nico Robin, do you?"

"Yeah! Do you know her?"

Her eyebrows furrowed in thought, "No, only heard of her through the papers. Apparently, she had joined up with the Straw Hat crew. Good to see the newspapers haven't sunk so low as to start lying or getting misinformation,"

From what she had seen, the comment was completely lost on the empty-headed boy. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, making a gesture encouraging him to follow along.

After a brisk walk through the strange structure of the navy building, Anka and Luffy found themselves in front of a large metal door which was blocking the way. It seemed like a key was required to open it, and to Anka's dismay, there was no key in sight.

"Damn. We're gonna need some brute strength to be able to get through,"

"Alright, stand back," he said.

"Why? What are you gonna do?"

"This is the way we need to go to get there right?" he cracked his knuckles.

Anka looked at the boy sceptically, was he going break down that door all by himself? There was no way. She had heard that he was strong, but how could he be _that_ strong? She looked the boy once over; he looked rather scrawny for a man with a bounty of 100,000,000.

Straw Hat raised his left thumb into his mouth and shouted, "Third gear!"

Suddenly, his arm became gigantic and blasted through the reinforced door. Anka was shocked. How did he do _that_? As the dust and debris settled, Anka took another look at the Straw Hat boy, but he wasn't there. That was strange. She then looked down to find a miniature version of the Straw Hat.

"What?!" she yelled incredulously.

"Alright, time to head out!" the tiny Straw Hat boy said and began to make his way through the long corridor.

Anka followed the boy in a daze. What the hell had just happened? She cleared her mind and tersely picked up the shrunken boy and placed him on her shoulders. At least this way they would get there faster. With that, they proceeded into the darkness ahead.

* * *

After running for a short period of time, Luffy had eventually returned to his normal height. When they finally reached some large wooden doors, he raced ahead and kicked the doors off their hinges and sent them flying across the room. Boxes littered the area, and on top of one of them was a man dressed in black with a pigeon on his shoulder; a CP9 agent, she deduced.

As soon as the Straw Hat spotted the man, he yelled out, "I found you, pigeon bastard!"

The CP9 agent turned to him with a sinister grin, "Glad you could make it, and with another prisoner no less," he said and gestured to Anka.

"I'll keep him busy, you head for the door, okay?" With this statement, Anka had realized that any childish behaviour Luffy had displayed before had completely disappeared.

The CP9 agent stood up and put his hands in his pockets, "Sorry, but I can't allow that," he said while maintaining his grin.

Suddenly, from the doorway Anka heard someone.

"Did I make it?" said a blue haired man. Anka cringed at his appearance; he was wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and a speedo. Was he some kind of pervert?

A huge explosion occurred next to the pervert as Luffy impacted with a wall. They exchanged some dialogue which Anka couldn't hear and the pervert ran towards her and started explaining the situation at lightning speed. They two were to go and rescue Nico Robin on the Bridge of Hesitation while Luffy was holding this guy back.

Anka nodded in agreement and they both attempted to reach the door, but were stopped again by the pigeon fellow. Anka saw that he was about to do a finger pistol and cursed under her breath. She quickly threw Franky out of the way and braced for the impact. As soon as he made contact with her, she was sent flying across the room and smashed into the wall. Slowly, she got up and regained her balance. Once all her senses returned, she looked down on the red mark on her forearm and grimaced,

"That's gonna leave one hell of a mark,"

The men stared at her incredulously.

"It shoulda' left you with more than just a mark!" Franky yelled.

Lucci gave another one of his sinister grins, "So this is the power of the Silver Dragon, I'm impressed."

"How did you-" Straw Hat started, but was interrupted by Anka.

"There's no time to explain now, we have to go now!"

Franky regained his senses and nodded. The two of them ran for the door while the agent was distracted by Luffy.

"Right! Just super leave it to me!" Franky replied as they both pushed through the doors.

* * *

The two had finally reached the Bridge of Hesitation. Once on the bridge, Anka saw Robin and called out her name.

Robin's eyes widened in surprise at seeing Anka, "You're-"

Anka interrupted her, "This is no time for introductions! We gotta get you out of those handcuffs and fast! Mr. Speedo! Open her handcuffs would ya?"

"Got it," he said and hurriedly ran through all the keys, finally coming to the one which opened the handcuffs.

Once Robin was free, she and Franky began to attack the Marines standing in front of them. During the battle, they had decided to steal a Navy battleship to make their escape.

Then, in the distance, a fleet of Navy ships could be seen approaching Enies Lobby. A rain of canon fire engulfed the island as the ships drew closer and closer. Both the marines and the pirates stood still, shocked at their oncoming demise. The island was then blanketed by a layer of smoke and the sky had turned red.

They had finally cleared away the remaining marines and secured a navy ship when there was a large amount of bubbling from the side. Something was coming. Suddenly, what looked to be a mermaid jumped out of the water carrying the rest of the Straw Hat crew. As if on cue, all of them spit out a fountain of water and began to gasp for breath. Soon after, the Straw Hats regained consciousness and proceeded to what only could be described as some sort of comedy act. Anka tried her best to stay out of the way. When they were finished their act, they made a plan to wait there for their captain.

As they waited, the marine battleships finally surrounded the remainder of the Bridge of Hesitation. Anka sighed. She didn't really want to battle anyone; she just wanted to go to sleep. But the marines had other plans in mind. They encroached from all sides, attacking relentlessly, one after another. Anka took a more defensive role, staying back and just taking the hits.

"What? Is she indestructible or something?" An orange-haired girl yelled in disbelief.

"Well, not exactly," Anka replied.

"And who are you anyway?" the girl asked as she hit a marine over the head with her strange weapon.

"Look, we don't have the time to get into the details right now. All you need to know is that I'm on your side,"

The girl shrugged and continued fighting, "That's good enough for me."

Anka smiled as she blocked another attack. Then, from behind, Anka could hear a marine running towards her, preparing for an attack. She turned around just in time to block it with her forearm, the same one she used to block that attack from Lucci. She grimaced and bit her cheek to restrain a yelp. _Whatever attack that pigeon guy used sure did a hell of a number on my arm_.

As the battle continued, Anka began to question why she was really here. _Why should I be helping the Straw Hats? I don't have anything against them, but why am I going through all this trouble? I don't owe them anything, I could have just left and not have had to deal with any of this._

Once they cleaned up all the marines near the ship, the three of them ran up the stairs to the bridge and joined the others there. On the bridge were many more marines. Anka let out a groan of frustration.

Then, out of nowhere was a huge explosion in one of the nearby support columns. According to what the others had said Anka had determined that was where Luffy was fighting the CP9 agent. All the marines and the pirates both stopped fighting for a moment to examine the tower to find a defeated Rob Lucci. The Straw Hats rejoiced at their captain's victory.

The Straw Hat boy screamed, "WE'RE ALL GOING BACK TOGETHER! ROBIN!"

The entire Straw Hat crew were beaming and the orange-haired girl began to yell, "Luffy won! Everyone! Get on board the ship! We'll take it to Luffy and get out of here!"

"Fire!" One of the Vice Admirals commanded. The escort ship which the Straw Hat's were planning to escape on was blown to pieces with a single cannonball.

Then from the smoke, the man with the curly eyebrows came running, carrying everyone who was on the ship. He dropped all them to the ground and explained what was happening. Suddenly, a rain of cannon fire began to destroy the bridge. Eventually, the large platform had been whittled down to a single support column. The situation was looking grim. The group of pirates were outnumbered and surrounded with no means of escape. Then, all ships took aim at the tower where Luffy was.

"No good, at this distance I can't reach him," said Nico Robin. There was a lot of screaming for the Straw Hat to get up, but it seemed that he had hit his limit.

"Dammit!" Anka gritted her teeth. She was backed into a corner and there didn't appear to be a way out. Suddenly, all the Straw Hats started to space out strangely, like they were hearing some sort of voice.

The long-nosed guy started bawling and cried out, "JUMP INTO THE SEA!"

Anka looked at him incredulously, "What?! What the hell is that gonna do?"

"We have to get Luffy! Can someone get to him?" the long-nose cried

"I can," Anka said, "but why-"

She was cut off by long-nose, "Do it, please! Just trust me on this one! When you get to him, jump into the ocean!"

Anka didn't move for a moment and contemplated the situation. It didn't look like there was any other option, so she just nodded and ran towards the edge of the pillar and jumped off without hesitation.

"Hey! What the hell is she doing?! I thought she had devil fruit powers!" Zoro yelled.

The Straw Hats looked over the edge in disbelief. The girl didn't fall into the ocean, rather, she was flying above it. Huge, silver wings had sprouted from her back and kept her aloft. Each beat of her bat-like wings had enough force to create waves in the open water below her. Her skin had been morphed into glistening scales that reflected the red fire which had engulfed the island and large horns protruded from beneath her umber hair. No one had seen anything like it before. She landed harshly in front of the Straw Hat kid and gave him a toothy grin, showing off her fangs.

"Your long-nosed friend better have something in mind," Anka said and lifted Straw Hat up off the ground, trying to avoid harming him further. She slung him over her left shoulder and began to run to the giant hole in the wall through which she had entered. She hesitated for a moment; then leapt off the edge.

"TO THE SEA!" the pirates yelled as they too, jumped into the open water below.

To Anka's surprise, she landed on solid ground with a loud thud. She looked around and found herself on a worn-down ship. She transformed back to her human form out of sheer astonishment.

"Wha… what the hell?!" Anka said breathlessly.

"You… you were a dragon?!" Straw Hat shouted.

"And you have a magical ship!" she yelled.

Their disbelief was cut short by some oncoming cannon fire.

However, the cannonballs missed the pirate ship and the marine battleships started to crash into one another. As it turned out, the curly-brow guy had closed the Gates of Justice making the whirlpools reappear. With a sudden blast, the crew was out of harm's way and at a safe distance from the judicial island.

* * *

Once everyone had reached Water 7, they were escorted to some empty place away from prying eyes. As soon as they got in, the Straw Hat boy began inhaling food like crazy. When he was finally finished, he looked up at Anka and a huge smile appeared on his face.

"Hey Anka, I wanted to talk to you!" he yelled.

"Oh yeah? About what?"

"I want you to join our pirate crew!"

Anka stumbled back a bit. Was this kid crazy? She didn't know why, but something inside her head told her that she should join the crew. However, knew she couldn't, "Uh… I don't think that-"

"Aw come on," he whined, "it'll be super fun!"

She bit her lip. Should she accept? No, she couldn't. She was already wrapped up in more trouble than she could handle, she didn't want to put the group in a more dangerous position than they were already in. "No really, I can't accept."

Zoro looked at her suspiciously, "Yeah, this girl is pretty mysterious, Luffy. I found her locked up in Enies Lobby. Who knows what she's done to get in there,"

"Who cares about that? She can turn into a dragon! And if it wasn't for her, I'd be dead by now,"

Zoro scowled, "Whatever; do what you want,"

"So? How about it?" Luffy asked again, expectantly.

She frowned in thought. She wanted to say yes. Finally, she convinced herself that everything would be okay. _I mean, they took on the entire world, how much more damage can I do_? Her frown turned back into a smile. "Alright, fine. I'll go with you,"

"Alright!" he yelled and threw both his hands into the air.

* * *

The next day, she introduced herself to the remaining crewmembers and got her arm treated by the crew's doctor, a reindeer. Anka wasn't shocked at the presence of the reindeer; she had seen much stranger things on her journeys. After getting her arm looked after, she heard the news from Zoro who was reading the papers.

"They didn't have much to say about the Franky Family, but they had plenty to say about us. I guarantee that our bounties are gonna go through the roof after this one," he said with a smirk. After reading a bit more, he recoiled in surprise from something in the papers, "Huh?! What the hell is this?!"

"What, what's the deal?" Sanji said coolly.

"It's her!" he said, and pointed at Anka, "It says here, that she's a pirate, and a pretty famous one at that. Her bounty used to be 70,000,000!"

Everyone in the room stared at her in disbelief. She frowned.

"Let me see that!" she said, and grabbed the newspaper out of Zoro's hands. She began to read the contents of the article that involved her, "Infamous pirate captain Taverens "Silver Dragon" Anka has escaped from imprisonment, joined the Straw Hat Pirates in their attack against the World Government and aided in the escape of Nico Robin,'" she put down the paper and groaned. "I had really hoped you could hear it from me first, but I guess what's done is done,"

"What, that's it? That's all you're gonna say?!" Nami yelled.

"Well, what else is there to say?" she said calmly.

"Cool! You must be really strong then!" Luffy shouted.

"Not strong enough to escape by myself apparently,"

"What did you do to get a bounty that high?!" Nami asked.

Anka contemplated her answer thoroughly before speaking. "Oh, this and that," she said nonchalantly, "I'll tell you later,"

Luffy whined a bit, "Aw, why can't you tell us now?"

She flashed a cheeky grin, "Keeps the suspense,"

Zoro scowled, "So that's it? She keeps this secret from us and we just go along with it?!"

She dropped her grin and faced him "I wasn't keeping a secret. You never asked so I never told,"

"I don't trust this girl," Zoro placed a hand on his swords. He was promptly kicked in the face by Sanji.

"Shut it moss head! Anka obviously had a reason not to tell us that. Be a little more considerate!"

Anka smiled at the scene in front of her. The room was silent for a while until the crew decided to go stock up for their journey. As Anka left the room, Zoro kept an eye on her. Anka knew that it would be difficult to gain this guy's trust. But maybe it was good that he didn't trust her.

* * *

The log pose had finally set. The Straw Hats had just learned that the next island was Fishman Island; they were practically beaming. They had also learned that their ship had finally been completed and that their wanted posters had been updated. It turned out that every single one of the crew had a bounty on their head. All of them had their own reactions to the posters. Anka picked up her's in disgust.

"The amount is lower than I expected, and they still haven't updated the picture," she said and showed the poster to her crewmates.

WANTED

DEAD OR ALIVE

TAVERENS ANKA

100,000,000

The picture was of a scaly creature with wings; a silver dragon with yellow eyes. It was the same as the creature Anka transformed into at Enies Lobby.

"Hey, you never did tell us. What exactly is your power? It's a devil fruit right?" Zoro asked.

Anka smirked, "Yeah, Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Silver Dragon. It gives me the power to fly, and unbreakable skin. Of course, while the skin is unbreakable, the bones inside are not," she said and gestured to the cast on her arm from where Lucci had used his finger pistol. According to Chopper, her arm was broken in three places.

Luffy and Chopper's eyes began to sparkle.

"Oh that's so cool!" Luffy said.

"So you can fly? That's awesome!" said Chopper.

While Anka was busy trying to conceal her excitement from the comments she was getting, Luffy had decided to add Franky to the crew. They all made their way out of the building and to their new ship.

A few minutes after they set sail, a rain of cannonballs surrounded the ship, the crew was then ordered to furl the sails. After a short kerfuffle regarding the name of the ship, the crew was off, and flying towards the horizon.

After they had landed, a celebration had begun. The entire crew was singing and dancing except for Anka. She looked over the sea and glanced back at the crew she had just joined. They all looked so happy and joyful. She gave a smile before silently dropping over the railing and into the open sea.

* * *

 **First chapter completed! I know that I didn't have Law in this chapter but he will be in the next one so just stick with me on this one. I wanted to introduce Anka fully before getting into the main plot of the story so hopefully this chapter wasn't too boring. Anyway, thanks for reading, please leave a review and all that stuff.**

 **Update: Just a heads up, I merged chapter 1 and chapter 2 together and did a few adjustments here and there. No major changes in story though.**


	2. Chapter 2

Flying had always been fun for Anka. Sure, it tired her out quite quickly, but it was never enough to stop her. In fact, people would have to literally shoot her out of the sky to get her down sometimes. Flying had always been an action full of wonder and freedom. Though Anka had had the power to fly since her early childhood, she could never bore of it. However, she had a mission she knew she had to complete, so when her destination came into view, she began to decrease her speed and lower her altitude.

She landed harshly on the island's shore, a beach of jagged grey rocks and looked at the towering building in front of her, a menacing navy base. Despite its overwhelming size, the building looked run down and almost abandoned; the paint was chipping and the windows were covered in a thick layer of dust. She carefully walked to a wooden door, making sure no one was aware of her presence. She opened the door to a large well-kept hallway, and continued sneaking into another room on her immediate right.

The room was filled with rows of metal lockers. She walked over to the locker in the very back corner of the room and opened it hastily; inside it was a marine uniform and jacket. She changed into the disguise, carefully pulling the white sleeve over the cast on her arm as to obscure it. She made sure to cover her face with a huge pair of sunglasses and zipping up the collar of the jacket all the way until it reached the bottom of her nose. The large collar also obscured a strange necklace with a peculiarly shaped pendant.

Once she had finished dressing, she shoved the clothes she was wearing before into the locker and stepped out of the room and further into the base, making her way towards a large oaken door. In the distance, there were two marines heading in the opposite direction. As they passed, they stopped and saluted her.

"Rear Admiral Sir!" they both stated.

"At ease soldier," Anka said in a gruff and masculine voice; a voice that almost sounded like it didn't belong to her. The marines nodded and continued down their path. She cringed, she hated everything about this.

She opened the door with a loud creak and was greeted by an official navy messenger.

"Sir, you have new orders from HQ," he said stiffly. He outstretched his hands to reveal a thick document. Anka took it and grimaced. Why do they have to make these so damn long?

She briefly flipped through it and promptly threw it on the desk.

"Just give me the run down, marine,"

The marine began, "We've had several reports of a disturbance in the neighbouring island to the east. We've sent out many marines but according to the reports, all of them have been defeated so HQ wants you to handle the situation."

Anka turned to the marine irritably, "So I'm the navy's garbage-man?"

The marine shuffled nervously and began to answer but was cut off.

"Fine, I'll go. Don't bother getting a unit ready, I'll do this alone."

The marine nodded, "Shall we prepare a ship, sir?"

She shook her head, "No, I can do it myself."

She walked out of the room and down a large corridor which led to a fleet of Marine sanctioned ships. Anka would have loved to fly, but a group of marines had come to see her off; how annoying. Also, the marine uniform didn't leave much room to unfold her wings, just another reason why she hated it. She readied the smallest boat for departure and set off, bracing herself for the long journey.

* * *

Anka finally reached the sandy shore of the island. There was a narrow path made of gravel and an old sign which read UMBER TOWN in big black letters. She sighed and made her way down the path at her own pace.

When she had finally reached the town, there was a huge commotion at one of the nearby bars. She guessed that was where the "disturbance" was. She walked inside and straightened out her marine jacket. The interior of the bar looked old and worn. The paint was peeling and the windows hadn't looked like they had been cleaned in ages. She was startled by the large crowd that had gathered in the centre of the floor. It seemed like they were cheering on someone in a fight.

Anka cleared her throat and began to speak loudly, "Alright, break it up," she said gruffly to the crowd. She couldn't see who was in the centre of the mob but knew they were the cause of the disorder.

After some jostling and loud shouting, the horde finally broke up and dissolved, revealing the one who was making all the noise in the first place. Anka scowled when she saw the man responsible.

"Trafalgar Law," she said venomously. She took off her sunglasses and her voice returned to normal.

He smirked in amusement and took a seat at the bar, "Miss Anka, I see you received my message."

"What, so all this ruckus you caused was just to get my attention? If you wanted to meet me so badly, you could have just asked," she sneered.

"And if I had just asked, would you have met with me?"

She gave a short laugh and responded, "Of course not, but you could have at least tried. How did you know I would be dispatched?"

"Intuition," he stated.

"How very vague," she said irritably. He obviously had no intention of telling her.

He chuckled and leant back in his chair. "So I see you're still pretending to be a marine, how fascinating," he said, eyeing her uniform.

"And I see you're still pretending to be a pirate," she retorted.

"I have quite a large bounty on my head, Miss Anka."

"I've been promoted to Rear Admiral, Trafalgar,"

His smirk widened, "Only?"

Anka's face twitched in annoyance, but she bit back her counter statement. She realized the conversation was going nowhere and decided to change the topic.

"So why did you really call me here?" She asked impatiently.

"I've heard that you've joined that pirate crew with the eccentric captain," he said coolly.

"Oh, so you've been keeping tabs on me? How thoughtful. What, are you feeling guilty about leaving me in prison? Or are you jealous I refused your invitation and accepted theirs?" she jeered.

"Don't flatter yourself Miss Anka. I was simply doing a check up on my patient," he replied. "And it was your own fault you ended up captured by the marines. Don't blame your folly on me,"

"I wasn't blaming you for my capture, I was just acknowledging the fact that if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been caught in the first place,"

His lips curled into a smirk "But besides that, we both know why you _really_ joined that crew," he leaned forward, placing an elbow on his knee and resting his head in his hand, "it's because they remind you of _them_ , isn't it?"

Anka's nostrils flared in fury. "Don't you _dare_ talk about them. You don't have the right."

Law maintained is calm attitude, but chose not to press any further on the subject.

"When will you tell them?" he glared maliciously.

She took a deep breath, regaining her composure. "Tell them what?"

He kept his glare on her, not even blinking, "About all your secrets,"

She folded her arms as she stared at him, "You act as if you know me so well, but there are things that even you don't know."

"And what would that be?" he said, leaning back into his chair again.

She grinned cheekily, "Well if I told you, they wouldn't be good secrets now would they?"

His calm and cocky demeanor faltered for a brief moment. Anka noticed this and broadened her grin. She raised an eyebrow to signal that she had gained some ground in the little competition they were having. Law ignored this and took a huge black bag that was by his feet into his hands.

"By the way, here are all your belongings. I have no use for them," he said, and chucked the heavy bag onto the floor in front of her with a solid thud.

She took a moment to cautiously examine the contents of the bag, rummaging through the various items had filled it. She closed the bag with a sigh. It seemed everything was still there, undamaged and intact. She grunted as she swung the bag over her shoulders. It weighed her down quite a bit, but the contents of the bag were priceless.

"So, Miss Anka, I see that you haven't brought along any marines with you. Are you certain that was a good judgement?" he said, holding his nodachi over his shoulders.

"Won't need em'" she said coolly. "By the way, where is that crew of yours?"

"All of them are searching the town for supplies. Why, are you afraid?" he taunted.

"Of you? No no, I was just making sure there are people around to carry off your body, cuz' I sure as hell won't."

He smirked, "You sound so confident, Miss Anka. Let's put that confidence to the test," he stood up from his chair and began to prepare his attack, but Anka quickly stepped just outside of his range by jumping through the rusted door of the building and into a large open space outside.

She gave him a crooked smile and put a hand on her hip, "I know your attacks and fighting style well, Trafalgar. You can't touch me if I stay at this distance."

His smirk widened in amusement, "I know your fighting style as well, Miss Anka. You lack an attack which can reach me from that far." He tried to approach her again but for every step he took forward, she took two back. This wasn't going to work.

Her confident composure didn't waver, "Well then it seems we are at an impasse." She looked up to the sky thoughtfully for a moment and began to speak again, "Maybe I'll just let you go," she said abruptly.

"Oh?" he leered, "why the sudden change of heart?"

She didn't miss a beat with a snarky response, "Cuz' you're a pain in the ass to deal with," she paused for a moment, "and, as much as I hate to admit it, I do owe you. Anyway, I should get back to the base,"

"What will you tell them?"

She frowned in thought, then shrugged. "What's it to you?" she said harshly, and began to walk off in the direction her boat was docked but another question from Law stopped her.

"Why did you really join the marines?" he said with a mildly curious expression.

"Simply to get information, that's all. I'm not going to turn on you or anything," She replied quickly. She continued walking towards the shore and waved a hand as a goodbye, "Farewell, Trafalgar. Till the next time we meet,"

She exhaled sharply. Every time she had met that man, it always turned out the same. Snappy conversation, exchanged snarky remarks, even threats. She always had to be on guard with a man like him, and it annoyed the hell out of her. Why couldn't he just act like a normal human being for once?

As Anka thought back, she realized that he was always like that, even the first time they had met.

* * *

Anka faded in and out of consciousness. One minute she was on the floor, the next she was being rushed somewhere by some strange men, and then placed on a cold metal table. During her brief moments of awareness, she tried her best to move or to push whoever these people were away. However, all her attempts at movement failed, or produced a mediocre effect at best. All she could do was groan in frustration. She thought she heard someone speaking every time she tried to move, but couldn't quite make out any words or faces in her daze. She eventually gave up her efforts, as fatigue and pain overwhelmed her.

The next time she regained consciousness, she blinked her eyes profusely in an attempt to clear her vision. Above her were blinding fluorescent lights. She weakly raised her hand and placed in on her forehead to shield her eyes. Beside her she could hear some shuffling and a subsequent shout.

"C- Captain! She's awake!" a startled voice yelled.

She groaned. Her entire body was aching but the most prominent pain was definitely a splitting headache. She looked out of the corner of her eye to see a tall figure entering the room. She blinked some more in an attempt to clear her vision but the effects were lackluster. As the figure approached, she could make out some sort of white hat.

"What?" she croaked weakly. She realized her throat was exceedingly dry but couldn't muster up the energy for a cough.

"Miss Anka," she heard the figure say, "You've been asleep for quite some time."

She groaned again, not coherent enough to respond. She tried to move her head to see the figure but was halted by a sharp, shooting pain through her neck.

"I think it's best that you don't move," she could hear the figure move around and mutter to the other person in the room, "She still lacks proper motor functions and is only somewhat responsive. Call me again when she is coherent," and the figure left the room.

At seeing the figure leave the room, Anka relaxed and fell back asleep.

* * *

The next time she had woken up, her vision had cleared greatly. The lights were still bright as hell though, and she squinted. She turned her head to her side, this time the pain was only dull. There, the man with a white fur hat was staring at her intently.

"What the hell? Where am I?" she said groggily. The man got up and picked up a clipboard on the other side of the metal room. He began to scribble something on it.

"How are you feeling?" he asked monotonously.

Anka took a moment to assess herself before answering, "Like shit. Who are you?"

The man ignored this question as well and continued speaking, "Can you move at all?"

She frowned, "Tell me who you are and where I am,"

"Might I remind you that I can walk out of this room right now and leave you to die," he said rather bluntly, "Now answer my question,"

Her face twitched. Whoever this guy was, he was a pain in the ass and irritated her. However, she had realised that he was in a position of power while she was bedridden. She tried to move her arms and legs, only getting mild responsiveness. "A little bit," she answered reluctantly.

He scribbled something down on his clipboard again before continuing, "Can you remember anything about the events that lead to this moment?" his monotonous tone lead Anka to believe that he really didn't care even slightly about her well-being.

She tried to think back on what had happened, but couldn't recall anything. "No."

"I see," he said and put down the clipboard.

"What the hell happened to me?"

The man looked deep in thought before he answered, "Two broken ribs on the left side and two lacerations; one on the deltoid muscle on the left arm, and one across the abdomen; both wounds requiring stitches. You also had some massive internal hemorrhaging and major head trauma leading to a comatose state."

Her eyes widened, "How long have I been here, and in a coma?"

"You faded in and out of a severe to a mild comatose state several times since your admission, but the total sum of your time here is just over a month,"

"What?! One month! And where's my crew?" she said and hastily tried to get up. The sudden movement made her dizzy and nauseous and sent shooting pains throughout her body. She lost her sense of balance and fell with a loud thud onto the cold metal ground. The impact had her gasping for breath. The pain worsened and she bit her cheek hard to supress the scream of pain. All she could taste was the metallic flavour of blood.

The tall man frowned and yelled through the doorway, "You two! Get over here and restrain Miss Anka please."

Immediately, two men came rushing in through the door and held Anka to the floor. Feeling the futility of the situation, she began to morph into her full beast-form. She could feel herself overpowering the two men at her sides.

"Use the kairoseki handcuffs if you need to," the man with the white hat stated calmly as he leant against the wall, simply looking at the event unfolding.

Without haste, one of the two men opened a closet containing four sets of handcuffs. With the shackles in hand, the man ran back to the scene and snapped the cuffs around her scaly wrists. She felt her power draining away as the two men hauled her back onto her bed and cuffed her to it. They proceeded to restrain her legs and remaining arm, greatly impairing her movements. She flailed around for some time, but realized it was hopeless and stopped her struggle. Though, she still felt a strange sense of anxiety. Something was wrong, but she couldn't remember what. She needed to get out, and fast.

"Un-cuff me you bastard," she spat at the man.

"Must I remind you that I am your doctor and you are my patient? Patients should listen to their doctors," he said with a cruel smirk.

"Just…" her voice faltered, "just tell me what happened,"

There was silence for a moment as he came to sit next to Anka's bed. He leaned back and rested his arm on the back of the chair. "We arrived after the incident so we didn't see it take place. But," he paused to look her in the eye, "your crew is dead, Miss Anka."

* * *

 **So I updated this chapter a little bit but no major changes to story or anything. I hope you guys like this chapter and thank you all so much for the reviews an all that. If you have any questions or notice issues with the story please don't be afraid to ask or tell me about them.**


	3. Chapter 3

"No," Anka said, recoiling from his statement, "You're lying. Don't play games with me," she bit her lip.

"Believe what you will, Miss Anka, but I cannot deny the death of your crew," the man with the furry white hat said, unamused.

"You're lying. You're lying!" she shrieked with tears in her eyes, "No! NO!" she began to pull at her restraints. The man began to talk to her again but the sound of her screams drowned him out. Her heart was racing and the entire room was spinning. She began to thrash around violently, causing her wrists and ankles to bleed, but it was nothing compared to the horrible pain in her chest. "Let me go! Let me go you bastard!" she cried out. She suddenly felt something on her neck. She refocused her eyes to see a sheathed sword pointed directly at her throat.

"Don't make me use force, Miss Anka," he said rather calmly.

"Get the hell away from me!"

However, the man didn't move a muscle. He simply stood there, his gaze fixed on the hysterical girl in front of him. His expression was blank, so Anka couldn't read what he was thinking. She subconsciously tensed her body. He was an arm's length away, but she felt uncomfortable with the distance. For a moment, the two of them stared at each other in silence. For her, the moment stretched out for an inconceivably long amount of time while, in reality, it had only been a minute at most. Her expression softened as she turned away, a sign of resignation. The blood dripped from her wrists down to her elbows and onto white sheets of her bed. An uncontrollable wave of tears fell from her eyes.

The man shifted the long, sheathed sword back over his shoulders. "Have you calmed down?"

She continued to look away in an attempt to hide her tears. She knew it didn't matter though, he had already seen. So, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. It was obvious the man knew it was just an act, but he sighed and left the room anyways, locking the door behind him. As if it were necessary, she was chained to the bed anyway. Soon, her act of sleep no longer became an act as she drifted off into a dreamy state.

* * *

When she had awoken again, her restraints had been loosened considerably. The chains were now long enough that she could walk a fair ways away from her bed, but she wasn't sure if it was enough to reach the door. She looked around and saw the familiar face of the man with the furry hat. He was leaning on the wall across from her bed and looked at her intently. She flashed an expression of disgust as she attempted to sit upright in her bed. Shooting pains raced through the left side of her body and her head started to spin. The man could see her flinch and smirked.

"You should be careful; you still haven't healed fully,"

The expression of disgust returned to her face. She sure as hell wasn't taking orders from this guy. After a bit of a struggle, she finally managed to sit up properly and looked him in the eye.

"What do you want?"

He grinned, "I want you to eat," he said and gestured to a tray of food located on a table beside her bed. She turned her head to see what she was being offered; bread, soup, some kind of meat and a glass of water. The food looked fine but she didn't have an appetite.

"No thanks,"

"You will eat, even if I have to shove it down your throat myself,"

She smirked, "Try me,"

Suddenly, he was in front of her, holding her neck tightly in one hand. He lifted her up slightly so he could look her in the eye, "Don't test me, Miss Anka,"

She tried to hide the fear in her eyes but couldn't contain it. This man was dangerous; she couldn't afford to make any mistakes here. "Let-" her voice cracked. She tried again, "let go of me you bastard,"

His expression remained the same, but he let go of her and returned to his position leaning against the far wall. "Eat," he said sternly. He wasn't taking anymore backtalk.

She grimaced, tracing her fingers over where he had held her. What was his problem? She sighed and looked at the food that had been prepared for her. She took the tray into her lap and began to slowly eat the soup. The food was decent enough, not anything special. She looked up at the man standing across from her.

"Happy?" she said mockingly.

"Not yet. I brought you here because I have a proposition for you,"

She looked at him intently. Just what was his plan anyway? Why was he taking care of her in the first place?

He continued, "In return for saving your life and releasing your restraints, you will aid me and my crew in raiding a Navy base and will essentially, become my subordinate,"

She continued to stare at him. Was he serious? His expression remained the same, so it was hard to tell, but she guessed that this man wasn't the joking type.

"I refuse," she said flatly.

"You owe me your life, Miss Anka. And if you wish to lose those handcuffs, I suggest that you comply with my quite reasonable request,"

"Reasonable? Perhaps, but at the moment, I'm feeling very unreasonable,"

He frowned as he shifted his position on the wall and began to walk towards the door. He whispered something to someone outside the door to her room. Two men entered soon after, one taking his place near the door and one sitting in a chair in the farthest corner of the room. The man with the furry hat was just about to leave the room when Anka called him back.

"Hey! Who the hell are you anyway?"

He smirked and continued his way out of the room, despite the yelling coming from Anka. When the man had left and the door was locked behind him, she turned to one of the two men in the room.

"Just who was that guy, and why is he such an ass?"

The two men looked genuinely taken aback by her comment, like she had offended them somehow. Her face contorted in confusion at their strange reaction. What was happening here? One of the men began to speak in a nervous tone.

"H-hey! You can't talk about our captain like that!"

"Yeah! He's the infamous pirate from the north blue! Trafalgar Law!" the other man said.

She cursed under her breath. Somehow, she escaped from the hands of death right into the hands of pirates. She supposed it could be worse though, they could be marines. She took this moment to survey the two men before her. They may be pirates, but they sure looked stupid in those jumpsuits.

"Yeah, whatever," she whispered under her breath as she moved the tray of half-eaten food to her side table and slipped back under the sheets in her bed, contemplating her options.

She had no intention of becoming part of this Law guys crew, but she also had no intention to stay chained up here for the rest of her life. She toyed with several ideas in her mind, trying to figure out what to do next. It took some time, but she had finally formulated a plan that was fair to both her and her capturer. She abruptly sat up in her bed, wincing in pain.

"Hey!" she yelled to the men still present in the room. They were supposed to be watching her for any suspicious movements, but they had both fallen asleep. Pretty crappy crewmates this guy has. She couldn't blame them though, it had been a few hours of nothing and even she was starting to feel tired.

The man jolted up from his abrupt awakening and hastily wiped the sleep out of his eyes.

"Yeah, wipe the drool off your face and get your captain. I need to speak with him."

He stammered some sort of confirmation before exiting the tiny area. It wasn't long before Law entered the room and took his usual position leaning up against the wall. She was surprised that he had come so soon, she had thought that she would have been waiting a few more minutes for him to arrive. His punctuality betrayed his uninterested façade and, to Anka, it was obvious that he was waiting to hear her response. Whatever it was that he was looking for in that marine base was clearly very important to him. This knowledge made her all the more certain that her proposition would be well received.

"I've considered your conditions for my release, and have come to a conclusion," she looked at him intently, analyzing his every facial gesture. He returned her gaze from underneath the brim of his hat. She continued, "It's quite unfair, what you're asking me. I do owe you my life, I'll give you that. But I do not intend to spend the rest of my life in this crew, nor do I want to spend the rest of my life locked up here. So instead, I propose a different plan,"

He looked at her with a scrutinizing gaze. Obviously, he wanted the terms of his request met, not a new one altogether. But he stayed quiet and allowed her to proceed with her own proposition.

"In return for everything you have done up until now, I'll help you in any way that I can. In addition to that, I'll give you thirty percent of any treasure I may gain through our expedition. However, I will _not_ become part of your crew. Think of me more as an ally than your subordinate. Is all of that acceptable?"

He closed his eyes as he contemplated the terms of their agreement. Anka sat there silently, waiting for his response. The silence that followed her words was unsettling, causing her to shuffle uncomfortably in her bed. She shifted her gaze to the other two men in the room and saw them also looking at their captain with an expression of worry plastered on their faces. Was this guy really that cruel? Anka shifted her gaze back to Law who had stopped leaning against the wall and stood up straight.

"It is not acceptable," he said finally, "I will require a minimum of fifty percent of any treasure you may obtain as well as fifty percent of all the treasure you currently have possession over,"

Her mouth dropped to the floor at his outrageous demand. To Anka, fifty percent was practically insane, but she realized that it was actually fairer that way; he had saved her life after all. But a new problem arose in her mind, "Getting the treasure I already own may be a problem,"

Law's smirk returned at her comment, "I am well aware of the dangers involved with retrieving your treasure. Your ship is docked at a nearby marine base. We've already made the preparations to recapture it. But before we go, I need to know if you accept my terms,"

She sighed, "You drive a hard bargain Trafalgar, but I accept,"

* * *

Anka could see the abandoned marine base over the violent waves. She let out a heavy sigh as she thought over what she would tell her superiors. Should she tell them that Law was there? No, saying that the infamous "Surgeon of Death" was there and that she had failed to capture him would get her an earful. She was better off saying that it was just a couple of ruffians who were drunk off their ass and swinging a gun around.

Her mind wandered over to the large black bag at her feet. Why had he given it back? Certainly it wasn't because he owed her or anything as morally just as that. In fact, she was pretty sure she owed him, which pissed her off.

As she docked the dingy rowboat and hopped onto the port, she had come to the conclusion that he still wanted something from her. Otherwise, he could have sold her belongings for a highly inflated price and been on his merry way.

Another dense sigh escaped her lips as she saw a single marine headed her way, probably to get the details on the outcome of her mission to report to the higher ups. She calmed herself and readied her masculine persona.

Before he had uttered a word, she brusquely described a rather dull tale of how some drunk idiot had gone and pulled a gun and that everybody had simply overreacted. The lie seemed believable enough but the marine prodded further asking how she dealt with the situation.

Seamlessly, another lie escaped her lips, "Just handed him over to the inept local authorities,"

The marine nodded and was satisfied with the answer. He was about leave when his eyes wandered over to the suspicious black duffel lying still in the boat. Anka followed his line of vision and proceeded to concoct another lie, informing the marine that this was the belongings of the ruffian and that she had confiscated it. The marine looked at her face and tried to make out the expression that was hidden under the large sunglasses. An abrupt grunt from Anka had visibly shaken the marine, who bowed deeply and began a rather stiff walk back into the depths of the base to give her report.

As she slung the duffel over her shoulders, Anka wondered how long she would be able to keep up this façade. Working as a marine made her constantly want to vomit. She knew that many marines were actually good people who actually worked for the peace and protection of the people. But there were also the marines and government officials who cared more about outward appearances than the safety of innocent civilians. However, Anka had decided that she was not a position to judge anyone, so decided to maintain her position as a high ranking marine for as long as she could.

The information that she got from her position was astounding and she was actually quite surprised that she had managed not only to infiltrate the ranks of the marines, but that she hadn't yet been found out. Or, perhaps she had been found out but they were just simply waiting for the right time to attack her so that they could make a big show out of it.

Anka immediately pushed those thoughts out of her head. She hated being paranoid.

A whirlwind of thoughts swirled through out her mind as she made her way towards the empty changing room. She returned to her normal self and shoved the uncomfortable marine garb into the locker and closed it with a loud thud. She tensed involuntarily and hoped that no one had heard her.

Quietly as she could, she slipped through the large oaken doors and back out into the shore of jagged rocks. Carrying the duffel in her arms, she extended her wings and with a running start, soared into the vast sky. She silently thanked the Gods that this base was one of the least guarded bases of the entire Grand Line branch.

As she soared over the open sea, Anka found herself heading back to the direction of the Straw Hats' ship. The sudden realization had actually surprised her. She had intended to leave the Straw Hats far behind her and to never return again. From when they had helped her out of Enies Lobby, she had knew from the beginning that she would only use them as a way to escape. Yet she felt herself being draw back towards them. Law's words interrupted her thoughts;

"It's because they remind you of _them_ …"

She tightened the grip on the handle of the duffel and gritted her teeth. What an asshole. But as she repeated those words in her mind, she had realized that he had hit the nail right on the head. This only served to further strengthen the anger and resentment she felt towards the lanky pirate.

A few deep breaths had managed to release some of her pent up rage and she focused her attention on the horizon. Within a few minutes, she could see the silhouette of the Thousand Sunny in the distance. She cursed at herself for finding the ship so quickly. Why was she so desperate to become part of this crew? Before she had completely thought it through, she found herself descending onto the main deck of the ship. With a loud thud, she landed and morphed back into her human form.

Seconds after her rough landing, the crew burst through one of the doors leading to a large dining area to see Anka standing there, slightly dumbstruck.

"Anka where were you? You missed the super awesome feast and Sanji made this huuuuuuuuuuuge cake but someone ate it all!" Luffy blabbered on until Sanji hit him over the head.

"You were the one that ate it all! And now Anka won't be able to have any!"

Before Luffy could apologize, Anka stopped him with a rather nervous excuse as to why she wasn't present for the festivities.

"Ah sorry sorry. It's okay, Luffy, Sanji, I really don't mind. It was my fault anyway. I left without telling anyone where I was going,"

"So where did you go?" Nami questioned.

Anka hesitated for a moment before coming up with an excuse, "I uh, had to go retrieve my belongings," she said and gestured towards the duffel she had been carrying over her shoulders.

Nami eyed her suspiciously but decided against speaking out and instead, asked another question that had been on the entire crew's mind.

"So, what exactly did you do to get a bounty that high?"

Anka smirked at her question, "Well that actually has something to do with the contents of this bag,"

* * *

 **Hello there! Sorry it's been so long since my last update but school has been super hectic lately. Anyway I don't feel too happy about the way this chapter turned out so I might come back and change it a bit later. As always, please review so that I know what I did right and what I did wrong so that I know for next time.**

 **Just a heads up, the next update may take some time.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Hm? What's in the bag? Is it treasure?" Nami's eyes sparkled with joy.

Before Anka could say anything, Luffy interjected with his own ridiculous conjecture, "Is it meat?"

Anka looked at him, her brows furrowing, "No…"

"Well then tell us!" he said. He wore a huge smile on his face and hopped up and down like a child. Anka wondered how such a flaky and absent-minded boy could become the pirate captain of such an infamous crew, and then realized that his immaturity was probably the reason why the crew was infamous in the first place.

She shook her head and unzipped the black bag and showed the contents to the others, who all were leaning over the suspicious black duffel, "To be honest, I don't really know what this stuff is."

Inside were many different items of all shapes and sizes. Luffy stretched his hands out and grabbed one of the strange objects. He flipped it around in his hands, looking for any sort of irregularity. It was fool's errand really, the entire object looked irregular.

"What is this stuff?" he asked and continued to fumble the item in his hands.

She shrugged.

"Then why is it important?"

"Well, you see…" she trailed off, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. The crew leaned towards her in curiosity. "Um, all this stuff, me and my crew stole it from one of Vegapunk's old labs."

Their eyes widened in response.

"Y-you stole this fr-from Vegapunk's lab?!" Ussop trembled.

Nami looked at the bag incredulously, "How would you even _do_ that?"

"Well, we bust through the door and took everything that we could get our hands on. Pretty simple really. It also helped that the lab was practically abandoned at the time."

While most of the crew stood there dumbfounded, Luffy laughed, "Ahh that's so cool! I wonder what all this stuff does! Like this thing!" He threw whatever he was holding back into the back carelessly and picked up what looked to be a small cannon. He then gasped like he had some sort of stunning realization. "What if it shoots a beam?!"

The more sane ones in the crew looked at their captain in disbelief while the childish ones looked at the object with amazement.

"Well, it's completely possible that it could shoot a beam," Anka explained, "but I don't even know how it works."

Nami put a hand on her shoulder and with exasperated tone said, "Please don't encourage them,"

Anka laughed but stopped suddenly and put a hand to her neck, "Actually, there are a few things that from Vegapunk's lab that I actually found a use for," as she said this, everyone turned back to look in her direction, even Luffy who was playing with the device trying to get it to work.

She put a hand on the pendant that was hung around her neck, "This thing on my neck actually changes the sound of my voice," she tapped the front of the pendant and began to speak again, "like this," unlike her previous statements, this one sounded like it came from a gruff male rather than her.

"And, though it may be less cool, the clothes that I'm wearing right now are actually really well suited for zoan type devil fruit users. They change in size and shape to best fit the user so it's pretty good for transforming and that kind of thing,"

"Ah, that makes sense," Nami nodded, "That's why all your clothes look like they're for men," she said bluntly.

Anka looked down at her current attire, suddenly very aware of what she was wearing. She hadn't thought her attire was too strange, a grey long-sleeved shirt with two slits in the back for her wings. It was tucked hastily into what looked to be the pants taken from a camo version of the fatigues usually worn by the marines. The hem of the pants was placed inside scuffed combat boots. She looked back at Nami who wore a smile.

"We're gonna have to take you shopping."

"Whatever," she muttered under her breath, low enough so Nami wouldn't hear.

Anka shrugged, zipping up the bag, slinging it over her shoulders. She looked over at the boys who were fussing over the strange cannon-shaped object, "You guys can keep screwing around with that. I'm gonna go put my stuff away,"

Luffy, and the others who were with him, shouted joyfully as they kept trying to make the strange item work.

* * *

Anka opened her large duffel again and began to empty out the contents onto the bed she had been given in the female quarters. She started to sort through all the items, rummaging around until she uncovered a pile of crumpled up clothing jammed into the side of the bag. She sighed as she took them out and tried to smooth over the wrinkles. The fabric was the same as the clothing she was wearing now.

Eventually, she gave up and threw the items of clothing into a closet. As she rummaged further through the bag, she found an object that didn't belong. It was a den-den mushi a little bigger than the size of her palm. On it was a brown spotted, furry hat. One look and she could tell exactly who it was from.

"That bastard," she muttered under her breath.

So he really did still want something from her. She swore the next time she saw that surgeon she was going to beat his face to a bloody pulp. Or at least try to.

She tossed it onto the nightstand that the Straw Hat crew had so graciously given to her. In the act of doing this, she saw a white mass on her forearm. Focusing on it, she realized that she still had her cast on from when Lucci had used a finger pistol on her.

Another heavy sigh escaped from her lips as she quickly put away her belongs and exited the room. She searched the ship until she had found Chopper's office. She knocked lightly on the door.

"Hey Chopper, can I come in?"

She heard a muffled response through the wall telling her that she could come in. She opened the door into a large room and saw that Chopper was at a desk grounding ingredients in a small bowl.

"Hey, I was wondering, if you aren't too busy, could you take a look at my arm?" she said and waved the cast around.

"Oh yeah! Just take a seat over there,"

She sat down on the pristine white bed and Chopper quickly followed and took her arm in his hooves.

"So… what were you doing over there?" she asked.

"Oh, I was making Rumble Balls!"

She stared at him, "Rumble Balls?"

He nodded, "Yep! They help me use different zoan type forms, but it only lasts for three minutes,"

"Wow, that's pretty cool," she said. It had definitely surprised her, but the emotion didn't reach her words.

Anka looked down at the reindeer to see a complete personality change, "Saying that won't make me happy, you jerk!" he said this with a huge smile plastered onto his face.

She smiled. He was easy to read.

"Anyway, it looks like we can take off your cast now,"

The procedure was simple enough. Within minutes, the bulky cast was off her arm and she was ready to go. However, there was something she had been wanting to ask.

"Hey, you said that those Rumble Balls you were making could allow zoan type devil fruit users to achieve more forms than the basic three."

He nodded.

"So, what if I tried them?"

He looked down in thought, "Well, theoretically it should work, but the portion sizes may be different for you so I'm not sure."

A mischievous smile appeared on her face, "Let me try one."

"I don't think you should do that!" he said shakily.

"Oh come on, just one." She raised a finger and made sure to douse her words in sugar as she tried to convince him.

He shook his head violently from side to side, "No way! There's no way to know what could happen!"

She scowled, "You're a scientist right? Then let's do an experiment." Her eyes twinkled in excitement. She didn't even think about the possible repercussions.

He looked at the cabinet he was working at and then back to Anka.

"Ah, so that's where you keep them!" she began to walk towards the cabinet and open the doors and look for something in a spherical shape. As she scanned the contents of the cupboard, her eyes fell upon a bowl containing yellow spheres. She took them out and looked at Chopper.

"These?"

He nodded.

She took one within her palm then popped it into her mouth and crushed it between her teeth. She waited for a few seconds, but nothing changed.

"Am I supposed to be doing something here?"

"Try transforming," he suggested.

She transformed into her half-beast form with ease.

She frowned and changed back to her human form, "Nothing's happening,"

"Maybe the amount is too small,"

"So I should have another one?"

"It's not safe. I think you should-"

She popped another one into her mouth before he could even finish. She tried transforming again into her half-beast state, a humanoid dragon. However, as she transformed, she felt something different. Usually, with each transformation, the shape her body would change into was firmly implanted within her mind. This time was different. She had expected to look back down towards the much smaller Chopper but instead, found herself looking up at him.

"Whoa, what the hell?"

It took her sometime to realize that she had turned into something completely different, a long, huge snake rather than the humanoid form she was expecting.

"Are you feeling alright? Any dizziness or nausea? Can you still feel all of you limbs?"

"I'm- I think I'm fine," she said. The different form was a bit jarring if anything, she just hadn't suspected it, so when she did transform, this was not the form she had anticipated.

"So it does work! I had always wondered if other zoan types could use it too and I guess they can!" he beamed, "but I need to change the size for you. It looks like you need more for the drug to take effect,"

"Uh, that's cool and all, but, how do I control this thing?" she said. She tried to transform back into her human form but instead turned into and even smaller salamander about seven inches long.

"That takes some practice," he laughed sheepishly, "but I can teach you, if you want."

"Ah you would do that for me! You're the best Chopper!" she grinned, finally managing to turn back into her human form.

"You jerk! Hearing you say that doesn't make me happy at all!"

She laughed. "We should start training soon!" she said.

He nodded. She began to leave but was stopped.

"Oh, before you go, I have to tell you the restrictions of the Rumble Ball,"

"Restrictions?"

"It may be different for you but there are dangers when using it. It only lasts for a short amount of time, and taking a large amount can cause you to lose control of your powers so you shouldn't use it until you've mastered the technique."

She scratched her head, "Wow that seems like it's pretty tough to use. You must have been really skilled to master it,"

"Get out of here you jerk! I'm not smiling!" he grinned.

With a laugh, Anka left the room.

Outside, the sun had already set and the darkness of night had taken over the sky. She sighed and decided that it was time to go to sleep. With a sigh, she entered the room she shared with Nami and Robin and found that they were still awake.

"You got you're cast taken off," Robin commented.

"Yep! All set and ready to go." Anka punched the air in front of her as a sign of health and excitement.

"That's good to hear,"

Anka nodded and plopped down on her bed. She could feel the tension she had been carrying release as all her muscles relaxed. She let out a relieved sigh and looked at the den den mushi on the nightstand next to her bed. Even looking at it made her a bit irritated. Why did Law make her so annoyed? Maybe it was the way it had always anticipated her moves. Or maybe because he was obviously using her to reach whatever his goals were. She went on listing reasons, all while staring intently at the den den mushi in front of her.

"So Anka," Nami said, breaking the silence, "Is there some guy you're interested in?"

Anka turned to face Nami abruptly, "Huh? Why do you ask?"

"Well, you're looking at that den den mushi like you're expecting a call or something."

"No," she sighed, "I guess I am expecting a call, but definitely not from a romantic partner. Far from it actually." There was a short pause. "What about you?"

"Ahh, I only have one love" she picked up a wad of cash from her own nightstand, "and that's money,"

Anka responded with a chuckle.

Eventually, they grew tired of talking and with a yawn, Anka bade them goodnight and the candle that had illuminated the cozy room and been blown out. Darkness overtook Anka's vision and she closed her eyes in an attempt to sleep.

But sleep didn't come.

Many times she found herself with her eyes open staring blankly through the darkness at the ceiling. After many hours passed, she gave up on sleep entirely and discretely slipped out of the room.

The outside air was cold and windy as the long night drawled on. Or perhaps it only seemed long because sleep had eluded her. She leaned on the rails of the ship and looked out towards the horizon, waiting for the sun to make its debut.

She dug her hand deep within the pockets of her camo pants and pulled out a worn pack of cigarettes. She slipped one out of the crumpled box and placed it gingerly between her lips. In her other pocket, she dug out a matchbox and smoothly struck the match until a golden flame appeared. The dim light reflected in her exasperated eyes as she lit the cigarette. She tossed the lit match overboard and watched it disappear among the calm blue waves.

She closed her eyes as she breathed in a cloud of smoke. The warm smoke filled her lungs and enveloped them in a large blanket. She held her breath for as long as she could and basked in the comforting sensation. Finally, she exhaled, bringing the toxic air out of her system and into view. For a brief moment, the puff of smoke clung to the air right in front of her, and then quickly dissipated until it completely vanished.

"A young lady like you really shouldn't be smoking," she had been so enveloped in the act that she hadn't even noticed a presence behind her. She turned to face the voice.

"Ah Sanji, I didn't see you there,"

"Though, it's not my place to tell a beautiful lady what to do," he said and stood beside her on the railings. He also took out a cigarette and began to smoke.

"What are you doing up? It's the middle of the night," she asked.

He looked out at the horizon where the sun would eventually rise. The hint of an orange hue could already be seen peeking over the gentle waves of the sea. "A gentleman knows when a lady is in trouble," he said thoughtfully.

She smiled, "I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine."

"But that's not what you're eyes are telling me,"

She turned back to look at the horizon and took another drag without saying a word.

"Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"

There was a pause as she searched her mind for the right words. "You Straw Hats," she exhaled, "you're all so accepting. You guys don't even know me, but you asked me to be on your crew without asking any questions. How could you even do that? I mean, I feel guilty. You don't know any of my past,"

"Well, that could change, if you want to tell me."

She leaned a bit more on the railing, the cigarette dangling between her index and forefinger. A small smile graced her lips. She closed her eyes and began to tell her story.

* * *

The journey had been long and tedious. They were underwater most of the time which gave Anka a looming sense of claustrophobia. The only thing keeping her sane was the view from the small window which was almost too thick to see through clearly. When Law had finally announced that they were surfacing, Anka let out a long sigh of relief. She ran up to the door leading outside to the deck and waited eagerly for it to be opened.

She hadn't been outside since before she arrived on the submarine and even then, she was still having trouble remembering what had actually happened before her rude awakening on a hospital bed. Either way, she was just happy that she would be able to breathe some fresh air again.

As she waited, in the corner of her eye, she saw a strange figure. When she turned to face it, she was dumbfounded. Next to her, was a large polar bear in an orange boiler suit standing on two legs. It shifted its weight from one leg to the other, looking anxious to get out. The bear didn't seem to be aware of the dumbstruck girl beside him and focused on the slowly opening door in front of them. When the handle of the door finally spun open, the bear ran out with arms in the air, embracing the salty breeze. Anka was frozen in place, her eyes fixed on the creature.

She racked her brain for an answer. Devil fruit? No, why would they be using it now? Actually polar bear standing on two feet wearing an orange jumpsuit? Well that was just impossible.

"Miss Anka, you shouldn't stand in the middle of the door way," Trafalgar's voice startled Anka out of her daze. She turned to look at the man incredulously.

She pointed weakly at the bear who had laid down on the deck, "Wha… why is there a bear…?"

He walked ahead of her and lazily leaned on the metal railing with his nodachi slung over his shoulders, "His name is Bepo."

She was about to ask a landslide of questions but decided against it, shaking her head instead. The journey had been long and tiring, Anka was sure that she wouldn't be able to comprehend something as crazy as a talking bear. Her brain was already a pile of mush by now. She walked up to Law and put her hand on her hips. He looked up to face her and saw that one of her hands was outstretched as if she was expecting to receive something.

He looked at her hand and then back to her face. Her expression was stern, definitely expecting something. It only took him an instant to figure out what she was asking for, he had actually been waiting for her to ask. However, he played dumb and looked into her eyes without moving an inch.

"Come on, hand it over." She said, wriggling her fingers in an attempt to encourage him.

He emitted a low chuckle, "What is it, Miss Anka?"

Her face twitched in irritation and her open hand closed into a fist, "Tch, you know what I mean. Now give them back,"

He smirked in amusement, playing with her was actually quite fun. "I simply don't know what you are referring to."

This only irked her further. Why was he so insistent on screwing with her? Did her always do this? Well, it didn't matter, she needed to retrieve what was hers. However, she didn't want to create a commotion, this man had saved her life after all, so instead of ordering him, she pleaded instead.

"I won't smoke inside, alright?" She had now pressed her closed fist into his chest. She had been getting progressively antsier as time had passed. She couldn't even remember the last time she had a cigarette. He must have taken her pack and matches when she was unconscious.

He closed his eyes and put his hand inside his pocket. He pulled out a fairly damaged pack of cigarettes and a small box of matches. Anka reached out to take them but he pulled away at the last second and enclosed the items in his hands. "Perhaps you have a nicotine addiction, hm? You should really get that treated."

Her already miniscule patience had all been whittled away by the man in front of her. Angrily, she grabbed his arm and tried to open his fist. He was too fast though, so the second she got hold of his wrist, he pulled her forward towards himself. She was so overwhelmed by surprise that she didn't notice his thumb heading straight for the slash wound on her stomach. By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late. Her breath hitched as she withheld a scream of pain. This damned man was insufferable; Anka couldn't believe that she had just recently agreed to help him.

She could hear a low chuckle from him as she almost doubled over in pain. "You shouldn't treat your saviour like this. Are you really lacking such basic manners?" He removed his thumb from her wound and she staggered past him and leaned on the railing, her arms covering her stomach. He dropped the pack of cigarettes and matchbook in front of her on the floor and chuckled again.

"You damned bastard…" she managed to mutter between laboured breaths. She groaned and picked up her belongings. Clumsily, she took out a smoke and lit up, savouring the feeling. Maybe she was addicted.

But that didn't matter now; the only thing she cared about at the moment was getting her ship back from the Marines. After she had regained consciousness, it was the only thing she could think about. The fact that _her_ ship was now in the hands of the filthy marines was enough to make her nauseous. But the fact that they had surfaced meant that they were close to the base where her ship was being held had eased her nausea.

"Captain, the base is directly east of our location. If we turn ninety degrees starboard, we should be facing the dock,"

Law nodded and his underlings scattered, doing what, Anka didn't care. Honestly, it disgusted her, how much power this captain held over his crew. I single head nod and his crew would probably jump overboard. She scoffed and threw her cigarette over the railing.

As the sub turned to face the east, Anka could see the silhouette of a structure far off in the distance. She stretched her large wings out through the slits of her ragged clothing and prepared for takeoff. However, she was halted by the voice of the captain.

"What do you think you're doing?"

She frowned, "I'm getting my ship back,"

"No, you're not."

Her eyebrows twitched in annoyance. It was really taking all of her willpower not to slug him in the face. She managed to keep her anger in check by not saying a word.

"We observe the base and formulate a plan accordingly," he stated.

She groaned and threw her head back. Patience was not her strong suit.

His cold demeanor didn't change, "While you are on my ship, you follow my every order. Is that clear?"

Now he was really pushing it. Like hell she was following his every whim. She wasn't an obedient dog, hell she wasn't even part of his crew. Where does he get off acting like he's some sort of big shot?

She huffed in anger and with all her might; she pushed off the surface of the deck and shot into the air. She would have flown off by herself anyway, but now, it was more out of spite than impatience.

There were yells behind her telling her to get her ass back to the ship, but she was already long gone.

* * *

 **So that does it for this chapter, hope you all enjoyed it.**

 **Now, reading back on the chapters I've done thus far, I realize that the way she is now, Anka is a bit too Mary Sue-ish. But not to worry! I had a feeling this would happen in the first few chapters but as the story goes on, all of you will get so see more and more of her personality.**

 **Another heads up, as the story develops and as I continue to write it, my thoughts tend to change and my ideas about the plot of the story changes as time goes on. I know this is an issue with many fanfics as the author starts to change the plot to their story when they are already a few chapters in. Because of this, there may be a few plot holes in my story that I miss in editing so if any of you see anything that seems out of place or doesn't make sense within the context of the story, please tell me so I can fix it.**

 **Also, I don't have a beta reader or editor so some of the parts in the story which may sound alright to me may not sound alright to the rest of you, so, again, please tell me if something seems weird.**

 **For any of you that were wondering, I did combine some of the chapters and re-upload them just to streamline the story. Nothing important to the plot has changed though so no cause for concern.**

 **As always, thanks for reading and other final remarks.**


	5. Chapter 5

Anka landed clumsily on the shelter of the dock. As carefully as she could, she leaned over the edge of the roof so she could see inside. Her eyes widened at the sight of numerous seized pirate ships filling the docks. Among them was a ship she was very familiar with.

Her ship.

It had been stripped bare and searched thoroughly, she could see that even from where she was observing. An intense wave of depression washed over her like icy water. What the hell had happened?

Her grieving was cut short by a tug she felt around her neck. Then, suddenly, she was looking at the sky. Why was she looking at the sky?

The answer came quickly: She had been thrown into the air.

Her back impacted with the ground hard enough so that she could feel the pain all the way down to her ankles. As she lay there looking blankly into the sky, a figure appeared in the corner of her vision, looming over her.

"You," she snarled.

"I should perform an ear examination on you," said Law.

"I know I'm going to regret asking this but; why?"

"You seem to do the exact opposite of what I say. Maybe you're just hard of hearing,"

She exhaled a hefty sigh and jumped to her feet, brushing off any dirt. She looked up at him and quite exaggeratedly rolled her eyes.

"How did you get up here?" she asked.

No reply. She assumed the question was not worth his time so she tried again.

"I can do this by myself," said Anka.

That was definitely worth his time. He took a step closer so that she almost had to look directly up to make eye contact, "From what I've seen, you can't. A second longer leaning over the edge and a Marine would have seen you. Think before you act,"

Anka immediately remembered her childhood when her father or mother would lecture her about something she did. She also remembered how she reacted as soon she as she realized she was getting lectured. She cursed, a lot. Her argument was basically nothing but swears; all of them very loud, enough so that her voice reverberated through the house all the way down the road of their neighbourhood. At first, the neighbours complained profusely and her mother had apologized profusely, but after some time, it had become such a common occurrence that the neighbours no longer bothered even confronting the family. This prompted even more cursing as she grew older until she got to where she was now.

A long string of profanity shot out of Anka's mouth like a bullet, and just as fast. It was a wonder how she managed to keep going, seemingly without breathing. It was non-stop, similar to that of a waterfall. Basically, it was a vast array of profanity with an argument sprinkled in.

To Law, it was more fascinating than offensive. Over the short time she had been on the submarine, she had acted cold and very reserved, barely answering when spoken to and never coming out of the room she had been given. Now however, it seemed that all that bottled up emotion had exploded.

Not only was it entertaining to see the sudden burst of emotion, but also to see where exactly she was going with her words. It looked as if she herself didn't know as she flicked from one topic to another. It was a strain to understand what she was saying; Law only heard parts of it.

She had definitely said something about how she didn't need him to constantly bark orders at her and then she switched the topic to how stupid he was and then to how he was ugly. Most of it was unintelligible babble.

After a few minutes, she finally descended into a mutter and seemed to be done with her rant.

Law couldn't help but smirk. A simple lecture and she had, for a few minutes, gone absolutely mad with what he assumed to be pent up anger. She was such an interesting subject; he would have to learn more at a later time.

"Are you finished?" he asked.

She grunted in reply.

He took that as a yes and continued, "We'll need a big distraction, something that can keep the Marines busy. Finding their armoury would be ideal, but it's likely that we would be found when looking for-"

"I know where their armoury is."

A heavy silence hung in the air. She already knew where that armoury was? How was that possible? Had she been to this base before? Even if that was the case, prisoners don't exactly get the grand tour of their cage. He ran through the possibilities in his head while keeping his cold demeanor. But his silence proved that Anka had bested him. No snarky comeback or witty response.

A grin emerged on her face and she chuckled. This distracted Law from his thoughts and he looked at her. That look was enough to make her smirk disappear and her chuckles fade away. He wasn't taking any more shit from her so she decided to just lead him there without another word.

As Anka weaved them through the maze like corridors of the base, Law wondered how exactly had she not only attained the layout of this building, but had also committed it to memory in such a way that suggested she had done this several times before. He decided that this was neither the place nor time to question her, and kept quiet.

However, her confidence in knowing the way had made her complacent. There were multiple instances where Law needed to remind her that they were doing a mission which required caution and silence. Each time, she brushed him off until of course, they were almost found by patrolling Marines. After that, Law could see that she was trying to be more subtle, but was failing quite horribly. Missions that required any sort of intricacy were obviously not her strong suit.

"Here," she said pushing a door into a large room filled to the brim with any weapon you could think of; guns, swords, clubs, knives, etcetera. In one corner, there were copious amounts of gunpowder and explosives, enough for quite a large distraction.

Anka was about to go and prep the diversion when Law abruptly pulled her behind a tall tower of crates and crouched down. Within seconds, two Marines entered the room, guns in hand. They walked to the back wall of the room where numerous guns were displayed and began to do some maintenance work. Actually, they pretended to do maintenance work as that idly chattered about their relatively mundane lives.

It didn't seem like they would stop any time soon, which made Anka extremely uncomfortable. Reason one being Law was close to her, _too_ close. He was so close she could practically hear the thoughts in his head. Reason two was because Law had his hand firmly clamped over her mouth. It was strange how well he knew her because if he didn't have his hand covering her mouth, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from giving some snarky commentary on the situation, and revealing their hiding spot in the process.

She really had to resist the urge to bite his hand as the Marines prattled on about the girls they were dating and the girls they wished they were dating. In Anka's mind she was screaming at the Marines in front of her. Do your damn job you morons.

By the time they left, Anka had learned more about them than she knew about her own parents. Everything from names to likes and dislikes, the only thing that was missing was their home address.

She made a move to get up but Law held her down giving her a warning look.

"Be patient," he whispered into her ear. She flinched at his closeness. This was more intimate than it needed to be. She was sure that he knew that but he probably just enjoyed watching her squirm. Sadist.

Finally, she had had enough of it and brushed him away rather violently. She stood up and dusted herself off and gave a glare to Law who was just emerging from the hiding spot. He had a huge smirk on his face which pissed her off; she was sure he knew it as well.

She sighed and dropped her venomous glare. She decided to take another approach.

"My- my innocence! I'm not even married yet and I've been so close to a man! Mother, father, please forgive me!" she said, putting her hands to her cheeks in feigned innocence.

His smirk widened, "Ah, so it's the first time you've ever been so close to man? It actually makes sense, with the way you are no man would ever want to step foot near you,"

She dropped her hands to her sides and her face fell, "You couldn't pay a prostitute to sleep with you."

She turned around, signifying the end of the conversation, and began to ready the explosion they would use for a distraction. Law continued to watch her. It was strange, how much her personality could change in an instant. On the submarine she was cold and distant, then she had become extremely aggressive and now, she was incredibly snarky and annoying.

"I know I'm eye-catching but, do you mind helping me out rather than just staring at me?" she said.

Silently, he complied and within minutes, they had hastily prepared the bomb with a very long fuse, set so that they would have enough time to escape the blast radius. Using one of her matches, Anka lit one end and the two snuck off to find the room which temporarily held all seized goods found in the pirate ships.

With the same confidence as before, she traversed the halls of the base. As soon as they had reached the treasure room, they heard a deafeningly loud bang. That would surely get the attention of all the Marines in this base. They both nodded at each other and swiftly entered the room.

Inside there were literal _hordes_ of treasure scattered all around the place. Anka whistled at the sheer amount of wealth found in a single room. Carrying all of it would be impossible. As Law began to collect as much of it as he could, she ruffled through the numerous bags, looking for her own treasure. Then, it caught her eye.

In the very back corner of the room, there was a black duffel that looked very out of place among the sacks of gold and jewels. Her face lit up as she looked at the contents of the bag. Law didn't even have to ask to understand what was so important about it.

A few days before Law had found Anka and taken her aboard his submarine, he had happened to hear some interesting news. According to the papers, one of Vegapunk's old laboratories had been raided by pirates and many of his old inventions had been stolen. One day later, it was confirmed that the Silver Wing pirates led by Taverens Anka, were the perpetrators.

The contents of the bag were most likely the stolen inventions from that lab.

"Let's go," she said, slinging the duffel over her shoulders and carrying a bag of treasure in each hand.

Law also picked up two oversized bags of loot and slung them over his shoulder as he did with his nodachi.

Luckily, on their way back to the docks, they had encountered minimal interference. It seemed like their makeshift bomb left quite an impact and most of the Marines were still assessing the damage. However, all that time they had saved by avoiding Marines were wasted once they had actually reached the docks.

Law would have liked to make a timely escape by leaving immediately after they had found the treasure. Anka had other plans in mind.

It stood right in front of her, the place she had called home for such a long time. Her ship, which was once saturated with life and colour, now stood in front of her, ragged and abandoned. She had memorized the shape of the ship so well; every curve, dent, chip and crack. Now however, there were so many new and unfamiliar ones, all of them caused by Marines who didn't give one damn about her ship.

"This is your ship," he said flatly.

"No, this is my dog," she deadpanned.

He looked at her, unamused.

She shrugged, "Stupid remarks get stupid answers."

She jumped aboard the ship and was shocked to see the state of the deck. Its nice wooden floors had been worn down by the numerous Marines stomping all over it. Blood had been soaked into the wood, leaving permanent damage. It was horrifying.

"What is it that you plan to do?" he asked.

"I plan to give her some dignity in death. She's had a good life; I think she deserves that much."

"And how exactly do you intend to do that? A single match won't be enough."

"Yes, I know, that's why I got this," she said, and pulled out a can that held roughly two hundred millilitres of oil from her pants pocket. "This should be enough."

So she had come prepared to do this from the start. Law assumed that she had got the can of oil from the armoury while they were preparing the explosive. However, that much oil would not be able to set the ship on fire as quickly as Anka thought it would. She would soon figure that out by herself though, so Law found no reason to interfere

"I think it would be in our best interest if you do this quickly. Unless of course, you want to be found out by the Marines," he said.

That was her signal to get started. She carefully poured the oil onto the deck of the ship, making sure to spread it around as evenly as she could. As she did this, she realized that maybe she didn't bring enough oil. As the expression on her face changed, she could see Law in the corner of her eye smirking at her, as if he knew this was going to happen. When she though t about it, he probably did know that this was going to happen the second he saw how little oil she was carrying. She ignored him though, and pretended that nothing was wrong.

This was quite amusing for Law as he got to see another facet of her personality. It seemed that she hated admitting when she had made a mistake. He wondered what would happen if he just brought up the issue.

"It looks like you didn't bring enough oil."

Her face twitched, "It'll be enough."

She dumped out the remaining oil and untied the ship from the dock. Slowly, the ship departed from the sheltered area of the Marine base and into the open waters. Standing a safe distance away, Anka threw a lit match into the carefully spread out oil. Soon, the small flame of the match had developed into a roaring fire.

Anka had always been interested in fire. Not in the way that a pyromaniac was, but in the way she suspected every human being was. Even if just a little bit, she believed that every human had at least a dull interest in fire. Though some would deny it, the way their eyes lingered on the flames betrayed their words. The way it moved, flickered and gave off heat, in some way, humanity couldn't help but feel that fire was in a way, both dangerous and welcoming.

This fire was not welcoming.

It was not a fire that one enjoys coming home to after a long and cold day. It was not a fire which people would huddle around and tell scary stories while roasting marshmallows. This was the kind of fire that would be seen destroying towns and killing families.

She felt that she should cry; that crying would be the appropriate thing to do in this situation. But she couldn't bring herself to tears. As the fire raged on, instead of feeling a burst of emotion, she felt a distinct lack of it. Was she just this apathetic? But that couldn't be right. She cared about her ship and about her crew and yet, she felt empty. Perhaps she was just exhausted and overwhelmed. So much had happened in such a small amount of time that maybe, she had just become too dazed to have any sort of reaction.

"It's time to go," Law said.

She just nodded and jumped off the side of the ship with Law holding on to her leg.

As instructed by Law, she flew directly west until she saw the yellow submarine. She descended slowly onto the deck and Law immediately ordered his crew to get ready for departure. As normal, Anka ignored his commands and stared absentmindedly at the burning ship in the distance. She stayed out there for as long as she could until Law had told her that if she didn't get into the submarine right now, she would drown.

She sighed and went indoors. The walls around her creaked as they once again dove under the waves.

* * *

 **VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Just to give all of you a heads up, I will be skipping over the Thriller Bark arc. This is to avoid boring you guys because if I put it in, it'll just be me re-telling stuff that all of you know already. **

**And with that out of the way, I know that this chapter was kind of short but in all honesty, I prefer shorter chapters to long drawn out ones, usually because with shorter chapters stuff stays kinda fast paced. Also, I can upload more frequently.**

 **As always, please leave a comment telling me about your thoughts on the story so far, like if there is anything I should change or something that I've missed or just what you think about it in general.**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

The members of the Straw Hat pirates had once believed that their captain; Monkey D. Luffy, was unparalleled in idiocy and foolishness. After their time on Thriller Bark, they had realized that they had been mistaken.

Taverens Anka, was thought to be the cool, level-headed former pirate captain that they had first met at Enies Lobby. However, it had been made clear to them that this assumption was wrong.

When the crew had met Brook for the first time on that rotting, abandoned ship, most of them had been reasonably wary and even afraid; he was a talking skeleton after all. Anka, on the other hand, joined her new captain in immediately welcoming Brook as a new member of the crew. This was when the Straw Hat crew had been introduced to Anka's eccentricity. It did not stop there however, any idiotic plan Luffy had created would always be followed by the immediate agreement of Anka.

After the events of Thriller Bark, the Straw Hats had thought they had finally grasped Anka's true personality, but Zoro soon found that there was another facet of her personality that she had kept hidden from them.

It was during the night after the crews' return from Thriller Bark that the severely injured Zoro had climbed up to the crow's nest of the Sunny to find a more comfortable place to sleep. As he reached the top, his hand flew to the hilt of his swords when he heard a clinking noise. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a shadowy figure leaning against the wall. Closer inspection proved that it was Anka, sitting in a tank-top and shorts, surrounded by numerous bottles with a slightly dazed expression on her face. It was an expression that Zoro was all too familiar with; she was drunk off her ass.

Judging by the amount of bottles that lay rolling on the ground, she had built up quite a tolerance to alcohol. This was the work of an experienced drinker.

"What are you doing here," he asked, though it seemed more like a statement then a question.

She gestured to the bottles, "Waddya think?" she slurred, "I hada _looooong_ day at work."

"What the hell are you talking about? You haven't done a damn thing since you joined."

She frowned, "An' whadis it that youdo, huh?" she yelled as she vehemently pointed her finger at him.

"I'm a swordsmen, I fight. Weren't you a captain? I didn't see you in one battle when we were on Thriller Bark."

She lowered her arm, "I'mma paficist, no wait, a pa- pa- pacifist. Yeah, that's it."

He growled in impatience, "You're too drunk."

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, _hey_ ," she managed to pull herself up off the ground and stumble towards him, firmly planting a finger on his chest, "I'm _not_ drunk! Yer the one thas _drunk_."

The strong scent of alcohol on her breath said otherwise.

It was then that Zoro had noticed that Anka had two rather large tattoos covering most of her body. A black and white dragon, one starting on either wrist, coiled around her body and ended at her ankles.

"You have tattoos," he said.

"An' you have green hair," she replied.

He could no longer bare her fowl breath so he took a step back, causing Anka to fall flat on her face. She immediately got up, seemingly unharmed and looked up at Zoro with wide eyes.

"You think tha yer _sooo_ cool with all em' scars, but I got some too ya know. I got one here, an' here, an' here, an' one tha goes all the way from here to here," she said, pointing to various parts of her body.

He had no idea where the rant had come from, but he was surprised at just how many scars she had. In fact, it would be difficult to find a place that _didn't_ have a scar. Zoro had thought that she looked exactly like one of those zombies he had seen on Thriller Bark. He was especially disgusted to see a revolting scar right on her face, going from the corner of her eye and curving all the way down to her mid-jaw. No wonder she always had her hair in her face.

"Oh, an' I almost fergot all these ones here!" she said in a disturbingly cheery manner. She pointed to several small scars that covered her knuckles.

During his life of almost non-stop combat, Zoro had unintentionally learned the meaning behind some scars. He knew immediately after seeing the scars on her hands that she was a fighter, because those kinds of scars could come only from mercilessly punching out the teeth of another person. Her statement of being a pacifist was obviously a lie.

He noticed something else too. While he was thinking, she hadn't stopped talking, even to breathe. It seemed that alcohol had taken away her filter and now she just wouldn't shut up. It had actually become incredibly annoying.

"Shut up!" he yelled.

She put a hand on her chest and gasped, "Well now yer jus' bein' rude."

He grumbled, "Whatever I-"

"Hey, you wanna hear a story? Of how I got to that Enies place?"

"No,"

But Anka started anyway.

* * *

"This is where you complete your end of the bargain," said Law.

Anka rolled her eyes as she leaned on the railing of the submarine, "I know, you wouldn't shut up about it. For the past few days that's all you've been talking about."

It had been about a week since they had raided the Navy base to retrieve Anka's belongings. Several news articles had come out describing the damages and stating some strange theories on the intent behind it. In the meantime, the Heart Pirate's had laid low, stopping at islands only when necessary and keeping their time there as brief as possible.

During that time, Anka had withdrawn into her temporary quarters and would rarely open the door. Any time that she did come out, she would be constantly reminded that she would have to fulfill her end pf the deal, not only by Law, but his underlings as well. This enraged her to no end, so much so that many times, she would have to walk away so that she wouldn't tackle them and then vent her rage onto various inanimate objects.

Law ignored her comment and began to describe the operation, "At this moment, we are approximately five minutes away from a Marine base. The objective is to locate and break into the records room. You will create a distraction-"

"Make a distraction so you can break in, got it," Anka said.

A sudden and sharp pain in her side caught her a bit off guard. She whipped her head to the side to face the man with wide-eyed rage.

"Show the captain some respect!" a man in a boiler suit said.

She groaned, "He's not my captain, I can do whatever the hell I want."

"Ms. Anka," Law said, "You will listen and adhere to the plan."

"And I will fly at the speed of light and call forth rains as well," she deadpanned.

"You talk as if you lack the ability to follow simple guidelines."

"Just keep talking, there's no need to make this longer than it has to be,"

He continued, "While Ms. Anka is diverting the attention of the Marine's, all of you will break into groups of three and search each room. Understood?"

Before anyone could even speak a word, wings burst from Anka's back and she jumped off of the deck with enough force to make the submarine rock back and forth. Within seconds she was far in the sky, heading towards the base.

At this point, Law had gotten used to her impatience and had, in fact, expected it. He briefly informed his subordinates on their roles in the heist and quickly followed her to the base.

She was already inside the building when the others had arrived. As soon as they had entered they split off into different groups and vanished into the various hallways.

"You have the patience of a child," said Law.

"And you have the appearance of a monkey,"

He smirked, "And you are an actual monkey,"

"Let's just get this over with," she sighed, "All of the records are kept in a single room in the west of this building. If you head down this hallway it should be the door at the very end."

"How is it that you've managed to obtain this intimate knowledge of the layout of Marine bases?"

She smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Oh, I have my ways."

Before he could respond, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, not even turning to see his reaction.

As she ran, she kicked open all of the doors she could. At first, all she got were empty rooms or storage closets but finally, she kicked the door into a large group of Marines who seemed to be cleaning some sort of training hall. As soon as the doors flew open, all the faces inside turned to see.

"Guess who's back!" she yelled into the room. Her voice echoed and there was a moment of silence before the Marines could even register what had just happened.

When it finally sunk in, Anka was immediately being followed by a horde of soldiers. Only seconds later, an ear-piercing siren rang throughout the base. Several calls were being made, all saying "the Silver Dragon has returned."

It was the most fun Anka had experienced in ages. Her knowledge of the base insured that she wouldn't be caught so there was very little she had to worry about. She expertly led the mob following her around in circles so that they wouldn't encounter any of the Heart Pirates. She had also caused thousands of beli worth in damages, although, that was mostly just for fun.

After an appropriate amount of time, she thought that it would be best to rejoin the group and make a hasty escape. As she turned a corner, she slipped into a supply closet and hid behind a row of barrels.

From her hiding place, she could still hear outside the door. It appeared that the Marines were completely dumbfounded at where she could have gone. One Marine in particular had even opened the door to the closet and didn't notice her there.

As soon as the chaos outside had calmed down and the Marines had dispersed to look for her, she escaped the small room and snuck out until she reached the entrance. Law and the rest of the crew were already there, waiting for her.

"Shut up," said Anka as soon as she had reached them.

"I didn't say a word," Law smirked.

"But you were going to,"

She knew that he would scold her for making them wait so she took preventative measures so she wouldn't have to deal with that conversation.

Law knew full well what she was trying to do. Lucky for her, there was no time to waste dawdling around the entrance to the Marine base which they had just robbed. But it seemed that Anka had done a good job creating a distraction. The Marines were all still busy trying to find her in the building and to clear up whatever damages she had caused so there were no guards posted outside.

"Let's move!" he ordered his men and took charge, running at the front of the pack.

The submarine had been docked under a cliff in a small cove as to hide it from any Marines. On it were a small group of the Heart Pirates whom had been ordered to stay on the sub to make sure nothing went wrong. As soon as the large group arrived, the group on the ship had begun to prepare for departure. Law was about to jump on board with the rest of his crew but found that there was something out of place.

The voice of a certain snarky and annoying woman was distinctly lacking from the sounds of chaos that surrounded him. He looked back and sure enough, Anka was not there. He could only imagine that the idiot had somehow gotten caught _after_ escaping the base. He began to run back and retrace his steps when he was interrupted by a soft voice.

"C-captain, where are you going?" Bepo asked from below the cliff.

"It appears I've lost something,"

* * *

Anka couldn't believe she had gotten caught. She was so preoccupied with creating new insults for Law that she had lagged behind the group until she was isolated. That was the moment the Marines had chosen to emerge from the base in an attempt to find Anka. And find her they did.

It had happened so quickly that she didn't even have the time to yell. Suddenly she had felt a heavy force on her back and then the next second she was on the ground, face first into the dirt. She felt the cold and smooth texture of handcuffs click around her wrists as the soldiers around her began to yell obscenities at her.

"We caught you this time, pirate scum. There's no way you're getting away now,"

"The once wild 'Silver Dragon' is now chained up like a dog. That's what you get for screwing with the Marines."

All Anka could think about was how Law would scold her for being so careless and getting caught. She wondered if he would bother saving her since she had already fulfilled her part of the deal. He really had no reason to, but it was a nice thought none the less. Immediately after thinking that, she wished she hadn't. Had she somehow grown attached to that creepy pirate captain? The idea itself made her nauseous.

"Hey! Listen up you piece of trash. This time you won't be able to get away," a marine roughly pulled her up by her hair and half dragged her to a dock filled with Marine warships.

There were even more Marines there. It seemed like they had already prepared a ship to transport her in. She was thrown onto the large ship and was instantly chained down, which seemed like overkill. Especially considering that they had already snapped a pair of sea stone handcuffs on her already.

"Hehe, you're gonna go straight to hell. That's right, Impel Down," a Marine officer snickered in front of her.

There was an instantaneous thud as the Marine got hit in the head by one of his comrades.

"Don't get carried away dumbass. We have to deliver her to Enies Lobby first. We can't get to Impel Down from here."

Of course, that didn't matter to Anka. Either way she was screwed, or so she thought. Little did she know that she would be saved by a certain green-headed swordsman.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading another chapter! Sorry if this one seems out of place or something like that, I lost all of my previous files so I had to start this chapter from scratch. Please tell me if something seems out of place or anything like that.**

 **So next chapter is Sabaody Archipelago! I'm really excited to write that one so we'll see how it goes.**

 **Also, on a separate note, I've decided to make the next chapters all have the English translations for words. So for example, instead of putting "den den mushi" I'll be putting "transponder snail" I'm doing this just so that is flows with the story better.**

 **However, I'll be putting honorifics into the story. So rather than having Law say "Ms. Anka" I'll have him say "Anka-ya" just because English doesn't have a good translation for honorifics.**

 **Please tell me how you feel about these changes, if you like them, or not or some other third option. If you have a suggestion on this topic, please say so.**

 **Now, on to the next chapter!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Usually I don't like putting notes before the story but I wanted to say that for the sake of the story, I had to VERY SLIGHTLY modify a previously stated fact in the One Piece world. I'll go into more detail at the end of the chapter. I just put this warning here so that you all don't freak out if you notice a discrepancy. Sorry!**

* * *

Getting to Sabaody Archipelago had been quite a pain for Anka, literally. Her hangover had really caused a lot of trouble. She had managed to find a pair of over-sized aviators but there was nothing to do about the vast array of ear-ache inducing noises. What made it even worse was that her hangovers lasted for an incredibly long amount of time. Now that she was in the relative quiet of "Shakky's Rip-Off Bar", she had some time to rest.

"Drink this, it should help with the pain," said Shakky, sliding a cup of steaming coffee towards Anka.

"Th-thank you," she said. She had no idea how Shakky had known, but she was grateful either way.

She gingerly sipped the coffee, a looming sense of paranoia taking over.

When she had woken up this morning, she couldn't remember anything from the night before. She had a vague memory of talking to someone for a long time, but it was so fuzzy that she had just chalked it up to a dream that she had experienced..

The way Zoro was looking at her didn't help alleviate the paranoia. Hopefully, she hadn't done anything stupid. She had tried to get Zoro to tell her what had happened, but he just yelled at her to leave him alone.

"So basically, you have a coating job for Rayleigh. I hate to tell you, but he's not here right now," explained Shakky.

As soon as she said the name "Rayleigh" Anka remembered something. It was a name her father had told her about when she was young. According to the stories of her father, "He was the stuff of legends," or something. Could it be possible that it was the same person?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Shakky had said the name "Law,"

Anka's eyes flicked back to the woman in front of her, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, Trafalgar Law is here on this archipelago _right now_?"

Shakky smiled, "Ah, so you do know Law. I thought as much. "

She immediately thought of the transponder snail which she was currently carrying with her. She had convinced herself that it was a good idea to take it because it had uses beyond just communicating with Law. Had he known that she would eventually come here?

Law being on Sabaody caused a new wave of problems in Anka's mind. Having to deal with him plus all the other things happening was enough to make her want to give up and go to sleep. The hangover wasn't helping.

The next thing Anka knew, she was being hauled off by her crew members and taken to an amusement park. She didn't even know why, she hadn't really been paying attention to when Shakky was talking. Either way, she was still way too hungover to go on any of the rides so she just ended up aimlessly roaming around the park stuck in her own thoughts. It wasn't long until she had found she had accidentally walked right out of the park. However, it was probably a good thing; she didn't know how much longer she could bare all that noise.

As she wandered around, she came across a small and shifty store which advertised vivre cards for a self-proclaimed "Best price EVER". She came out of the store with four vivre cards and a huge hole in her wallet.

"Best price my ass," she grumbled.

After a bit more walking around, she had finally found a relatively quiet area and sat down in an attempt to get some rest.

"Aaah! G-get away from me!"

A young girl, maybe in her late teens, stood a few feet in front of Anka with several men gathered around her.

"Stop squirming!" one of the men said as he pushed the girl's face into the dirt, "The auction is gonna start soon and you're our only chance at some quick cash!"

Another man shackled the girl up and began to drag her by the arms, "Yeah, the auction house isn't far from here but we have to get there quick to make it in time."

Anka stared in amusement at the scene taking place right before her eyes. She could hardly believe human trafficking was still so common here. And now she had just learned that there was an actual auction house, just sitting out in the open! It was ridiculous that the World Government just turned a blind eye, but Anka wasn't complaining. If anything, she was intrigued. She would have to see this auction house for herself.

So she followed at least ten paces behind the group as they dragged the hysterical girl to her certain doom.

Anka was astounded; the building actually said "HUMAN" right over the front door, how much more obvious can you get? Going through the front doors, she couldn't help but feel a little excited, her first ever human auction.

But her excitement drained away as soon as she entered. Seated just a few rows away, was the man she had wished so desperately to avoid; Trafalgar Law.

She cursed under her breath as she tried to duck out of view, but someone had decided to make it more difficult for her.

"Well, well, guess who it is. The Silver Dragon in the flesh," a man with fiery red hair grinned.

"Eustass, fancy meeting you in a place like this. I would have never thought our first meeting would be during a human auction," she said.

"Anka-ya, are you looking to buy something?" Law turned to look at her.

Dammit. Of all the places she could have gone, she had to come here. Talk about bad luck.

"No," she sighed, "I'm just doing a little window shopping."

"There are plenty of seats available,"

She crossed her arms, "I'd rather stand,"

Law turned back to face the stage and within minutes, the lights dimmed and the auction began.

They had quite a variety of slaves for sale, ranging from male pirate captains to female dancers. They were even selling slaves in a pack of ten, like onions in a supermarket.

Half way through the auction, the front doors opened once again.

"You guys! What are you doing here?" asked Anka.

Nami looked at her with a grim face, "Keimi's been kidnapped. We're here to buy her back."

Anka could hardly believe it. One of her friends had been kidnapped to be sold as a slave while she was off screwing around. If she had known, she probably could have saved her. But now, it was too late, all she could do was wait until the auction reached its climax. And it took a painfully long time to reach that point.

Finally, it was time. With no lack of fanfare, they had unveiled the true prize of the auction. This would be the only chance to get Keimi back before she would be sold of permanently to serve as some sick bastard's eye-candy. The crowd went wild with anticipation. Everybody wanted the exotic mermaid that was ever so elusive.

"Five hundred million!"

The auction house was shocked into silence. No one could compete with a bid that high, not even the Straw Hats.

Anka could tell that the situation was at a tipping point. If she didn't do something, the tension would burst and all hell would break loose. Then they would have a much bigger issue; the admiral.

Just before Anka could act, a huge explosion occurred right in front of her. Instantly, Luffy emerged from the cloud of dust with a grumpy looking Zoro. She was surprised but she had to admit, her captain always had impeccable timing.

"Keimi!" yelled Luffy. As soon as he spotted her, he began to sprint to the stage, only to be stopped by Hatchan.

Screams echoed through the hall.

"Disgusting! It's a fish man!"

"Oh he probably spreads diseases, don't get close!"

"Go back to the sea!"

It was a horrifying display of discrimination. And even more horrifying, Saint Charloss, the Celestial Dragon, had pulled out a gun and shot Hatchan.

Luffy couldn't take anymore, his anger had reached its boiling point, and no amount of begging or pleading would change what he was about to do. Anka gulped.

"Oh _shit_ ,"

Everyone fled the room; no one wanted to stick around and see what would happen. The only people that remained were the other supernovas and their respective crews.

Anka's face broke out into a wide, toothy grin. She did freely admit, her captain was _insane_ , but she actually liked him more because of that. She turned to look at Law, who was still calmly sitting with his crew, and laughed.

"And you thought _I_ was crazy."

"You both have no sense," he smirked, "Straw Hat Luffy, three hundred million, that's some bounty."

"You guys, we have to hurry! Navy warships are going to be here any minute!" said Nami

"I hate to tell you this, but the navy is already here, you picked a bad time to revolt," said Law, "The Navy's had this place surrounded since before the auction even began. They have a base on the archipelago, but I'm guessing they're after someone,"

Luffy turned to face him, "Who the hell are you? And what's with the bear?"

Anka pointed to Law with her thumb, "This guy is the one you heard about from Shakky; Trafalgar Law. I've had the absolute pleasure of meeting him before,"

"And the guy standing in back, that's Eustass 'Captain' Kid," added Robin.

While the group of pirates were busy with one another, one of the World Nobles had managed to get on stage and hold Keimi at gunpoint.

"Enough of this! If this fish is worth going through such extremes, I'll have no choice but to kill it!"

Everyone prepared to attack, but before they could, a strange sort of pressure filled the room and the Noble fell to the ground. Without warning, the walls behind the stage collapsed and two figures emerged.

Anka gasped with wide-eyed surprise. The man who stood there on the stage had fit the exact description her father had given to her. There was no mistaking it; it was the Dark King himself, Silvers Rayleigh. He had even possessed the power that she had only heard about in stories, Conqueror's Haki. It was amazing, to see a living legend right in front of her.

"I'd rather avoid fighting an admiral. The longer we wait the worse it'll get," said Eustass as he turned to leave, "If you babies can't handle a few Marines, then sit here and while I show you how a real man takes care of things,"

That statement surely got the others riled up as both Luffy and Law stomped after him.

"Trafalgar," Anka snickered, "I can't believe you let a stupid comment like that get to you. Luffy, I can understand, but the calm and cool captain of the Heart Pirates? Come on,"

"I won't be outdone by anyone," he replied.

Anka sighed as the three bickered all the way out of the auction hall. It was amazing how childish they all were.

While the three captains outside dealt with the Marines, the remaining pirates inside had decided to make their escape from the hall as well. When the stepped out into the open, they were greeted with a huge battle ground filled with chaos. However, this came as no surprise to anyone.

Before she escaped the battlefield with the rest of the Straw Hats, she ran over to Law.

"Hey, before I go, take this," she said and produced a blank white piece of paper from her pockets, "It's my vivre card,"

His eyes practically twinkled with amusement, "Does this mean that you want to meet again?"

"Just shut up and take it will you."

His smirk widened as he took the paper from her hand. Before he could make any more fun of her, she began to run back in the direction of grove thirteen.

"Are you running away from me?"

She groaned, "Just shut the hell up already!"

* * *

"If you could take a vacation, where would you go?"

That was the last thing that Anka heard before getting shot into the air. She cursed herself for not being strong enough to fight back, but she soon realized that the situation had been so hopeless that even the strongest of fighters would have a difficult time.

First it was one of the Pacifista and then another accompanied with a strange man named Sentomaru. To make matters worse, Navy Admiral Kizaru had decided to join the fun as well. To top it off, the real Kuma had appeared. Sounded like a fun Friday night.

From what she gathered, she had been flying for roughly one day before landing on an island. Though, it wasn't really an island, it was just a large rock with some grass on the top. There wasn't even a single hint of human life, but looking at her surroundings, she didn't find it all that surprising. She was pretty sure that this boulder didn't even have any sort of magnetic waves for a log pose to point here, so the probability of escaping was quite low.

She thought that maybe she should try and fly back to Sabaody, but quickly realized that it was a bad idea. She had been sent flying by Kuma non-stop for over a day at an incredible speed, there was no way she could last that long in even her best condition, and she was definitely not in her best condition. With no source of food or water insight, it was looking less and less likely that she would be able to recuperate at all. She had recovered from her hangover though, so at least she no longer had to worry about that.

Taking a deep breath, Anka decided to take inventory of the items she had on her. It had been a basic survival technique she had learned in her early years of adventuring.

She had her sunglasses, a small amount of money, three of her own vivre cards, Rayleigh's vivre card, her voice-altering pendant, a small pouch filled with custom made rumble balls which Chopper had explicitly told her "not to use in combat" because she still lacked the experience on how to use them and finally, she had the transponder snail which Law had given her.

The obvious solution was to use the transponder snail to call someone. There was the problem of who to call or, more importantly, whose number she remembered. The answer was zero. She couldn't recall the number of a single person. The only number she had on hand was the one Law had so conveniently written directly on the snail itself, much to her disgust.

She reluctantly dialed his number and waited for a response. He picked up on the third ring.

"Hello," said Law.

"I need a huge favour," she started.

She could practically hear him smirk, "What is it?"

"Okay, I need you to," she hesitated, "I need you to give me a ride back to Sabaody."

For a few moments, there was complete silence. She held her breath; if this didn't work, she would be screwed. He finally broke the silence.

"I didn't expect you to call me,"

"Trust me; you're the last person I would call,"

He chuckled, "I don't doubt it,"

"So are you going to do it or not? If no, I'd rather not waste my time talking with you. I have better things to do,"

"I'll save you if you need me to,"

"Hey," she snapped, "I don't need to be saved. What I need is a taxi, and you happen to fit that role,"

"Is that any way to talk to your saviour?"

"Just do it asshole,"

"I will need compensation for my favor. I don't work for free, I'm not a philanthropist."

A heavy sigh escaped her lips, "What did you have in mind? I'll tell you now that I'm not gonna be one of your test subjects. I'd rather not end up with my foot connected to my forehead or some creepy shit like that,"

"That's an excellent idea, but what I'm planning is much worse,"

"I don't like it when you're ominous,"

"I know," and with that, he disconnected, much to Anka's displeasure.

This signaled the start of Anka's hibernation. It had taken her over a day to reach her current location from Sabaody, so that meant that it would take Law a minimum of two days to get to her. In that time, she would have to conserve as much energy as she could. She thought that it could be done with relative ease, all she had to do was not move too much and she should be fine.

It was much more difficult than she expected.

* * *

 **Did any of you notice the rule I ever so slightly bent? In the world of One Piece, vivre cards are only made in the New Word, not in Paradise. But, for the story to work (Law would have to find Anka somehow) I had to extend in to the Archipelago. Hopefully I didn't piss any of you off, and I'm sorry if I did.**

 **Well, either way, that's the end of the chapter, hope all of you enjoyed it. I'm actually super pumped to get into the next chapter, I have some really good ideas (or at least I think so anyway)**

 **See ya!**


	8. Chapter 8

Law took exactly three days, ten hours, thirty-two minutes and forty seven seconds to reach Anka. And yes, she had counted down to the second.

"I think I'm dying," she managed to croak from her parched throat.

"You are dying," said Law, looking down on her collapsed figure, "Bepo, carry her inside."

Bepo's soft fur felt good on Anka's skin. Though she would never admit it, since she met Bepo she had always wondered what it would be like to touch his fur. Now she was satisfied, it went above and beyond her expectations.

Once inside the Polar Tang, she had to be hospitalized for a brief period of time. She was given a strange liquid that was meant to rehydrate her and had to be given the nutrients she was lacking intravenously. The entire ordeal took a full hour, much to Anka's displeasure.

"So what is it that you want from me?" she asked from her hospital bed.

Law, who was changing her IV bag, turned to look at her, "It took three days to get here,"

"It took you a bit longer than that but whatever,"

"Saving you took over seventy-two hours, so I want you to repay with your time,"

"So what, you want three days of my life?" she frowned.

A sadistic grin appeared on his face. She knew full well what that expression meant; it meant she was screwed.

"I don't want three days," he chuckled, "I want three years."

Her jaw dropped, " _Three years_?! You have _got_ to be kidding me. Don't you think that's a bit much? Even you have to realize that three years is a crazy amount of time. It's almost like you're sentencing me or something,"

"That's exactly what I'm doing. At least something's going on in that empty head of yours."

"And what you've got going on in your head is a lot of wishful thinking. There's no way in hell I'm wasting three years of my life fulfilling whatever fantasy you had imagined. Come up with something else."

"That's too bad for you then. That's the only way you'll ever repay your debt to me,"

She seethed through her teeth, "You bastard,"

Somehow, the man at her bedside had managed to take her one rule that she would never break, and twist it around her neck. She balled her fists in rage. How was it that once again, she was saved by this man? It was ridiculous, how similar the two situations were. She was saved by him, she was in a hospital bed and then he asked for his payment.

"I'm going to need an answer," he said.

Anka would be lying if she said that the thought of not going through with her promise hadn't crossed her mind. The only reason that stopped her from doing so was her almost immeasurable pride. Just the thought of being indebted in general was a horrific enough for her, but to be indebted to Trafalgar Law, that was more unthinkable than even wasting three years of her life. Plus, her only morally right ideal wasn't something she could destroy so easily.

"I'll do the damn time," she finally said.

He chuckled, "If you go on like this, you'll end up owing me the rest of your life,"

"Don't count on it,"

After ordering another medic into the room, Law left the infirmary. Only seconds after he had gone, Anka proceeded to rip out all the needles from her arm and remove the sea stone chain which had allowed her skin to be pierced.

The medic put down his clipboard to look up at her, "Hey, what're you doing?"

"I'm getting the hell outta here that's what I'm doing," she said, jumping off her hospital bed. She began to make her way to the door, but was blocked by the medic.

"No, you're not fully healed yet. The captain said that you couldn't be released until you recovered,"

"I don't really care what that creepy ass doctor said, I'm getting out whether you like it or not," she tried to be as intimidating as she could, but standing at a measly height of five feet three inches, much of her menacing aura had been lost.

The medic stood his ground as he towered over her, "I'm not like the other pushovers who are scared of you. You're not leaving this room until I say you've healed."

She made an audible groan and rolled her eyes, "We're done talking," she said, lifting the medic up by his boiler suit collar and throwing him into the room and out from the doorway.

Before the medic could recover, she made her swift exit from the infirmary and headed towards the helm of the boat. She noted that the submarine was still above water as she passed by several windows. As she entered the room, she saw many of the crew members pouring over a map and a log pose. Among them was Law, who looked up the second Anka entered the room.

"Hey navigator, where are we exactly?" she asked.

Bepo averted his gaze from the map to look at her and with a nervous voice responded, "Um, well, right now we're here," he pointed his furry paw to a point on the map.

"I see," she responded, "If, that's the case, then I'll be taking a small detour, just for a while,"

"Do I have to keep reminding you? You still owe me three years. If you put it off, you'll have to pay interest," said Law

She groaned, "Relax, I'll only be gone for an half an hour max. I'm not trying to bail or anything. And, as a bonus, if I take longer than that, I'll just see you at Sabaody. Sound good?"

He ignored her question and asked his own, "So then you wouldn't mind me asking where you're going. If I'm not mistaken, there's a Marine base close to here,"

"If you know that much then I'm pretty sure you can piece together where I'm going. If that's the case, then I'm leaving," she said as she ran out the doors and weaved her way through the submarine to reach the deck. She was about to fly off when she was stopped once again by Law who startled her slightly. How did he even get there before her?

"What's the point of going to these Marine bases so often? If you get caught now, you'll be in a tough situation," said Law.

With her wings fully extended, she turned to look at him with a bored expression, "If you must know, "she sighed, "They get very suspicious if you don't show up regularly,"

"So what information is worth risking your life?"

She grinned and raised her eyebrows, Law knew this was a sign that she was about to do something that would annoy him.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she chuckled and with a powerful flap of her large wings, shot off the boat like a bullet.

She laughed as she increased her altitude. She loved having the last word; it gave her the feeling of achieving victory. However, she had realized that Law's words had affected her more than she would have liked. What if she did get caught? In the situation she was in now, it seemed more likely that her identity would be revealed. With her position, she had been able to hear intimate knowledge about Marine action and formation, specifically, the upcoming war with Whitebeard.

Being a Rear Admiral, she was expected to take part in the war, something she was not keen on doing. But, reasoning it out in her head, she figured that the information she got being a high-ranking Marine was priceless. Now, the only problem was that the moment she arrived at the base, she would be transported to Marineford, and she promised Law that she would only be out for thirty minutes.

She would have to think about it later as her mind focused on the task ahead.

The Navy base ahead of her was in much better shape than the last one she had visited. The entire building practically glowed with cleanliness. She snuck in through her usual entry and quickly made her way through the building, putting together her uniform by hastily stealing a large cloak from the numerous closets and finishing the look by putting on her sunglasses. She had hoped that she would be able to avoid most of the Marines, but one appeared right in front of her.

"Oh, Rear Admiral Sir! We were just about to call you to come to this base right away. Chief Bridger wants to speak with you immediately Sir," the Marine gave a stiff salute.

She nodded silently and was escorted by the Marine to a large, opulent office. Inwardly, Anka gave a sigh of relief. If she had appeared even a second later, they would have called the Marine transponder snail which she didn't have. But her relief was instantaneously replaced with uneasiness as she realized who exactly she had been called by.

Chief Bridger was a horrible man, as Anka found common with most Navy chiefs. If they had met under different circumstances, Anka would have sworn that he was a pirate. The way he used other people for his own personal gain, it was ludicrous. Exploitation, backstabbing, and severe abuse were an everyday occurrence with this man and what made it worse was that he did it in the so-called name of justice. To Anka, what made him even more insane was that he actually believed he was doing the morally right thing.

"Ah, Rear Admiral Hozuki, I'm glad you could make it," said Bridger, who was sitting in a large, plush armchair in the corner of the room.

Discretely tapping the pendant hidden underneath her tall collar, she grunted in agreement.

"Silent as ever I see," he said while adjusting his cufflinks, "I wanted to talk to you, about what happened on Sabaody Archipelago several days ago. With everything that's happening with Whitebeard, what happened on Sabaody has been overshadowed," he paused briefly, "You do know what happened on Sabaody, don't you?"

"Of course," she said. Though the subject unnerved her, she kept calm. One slip up now could mean a load of troubles later on.

"I guess you would know, you would have to be an idiot not to know. Anyway, we need to deal with the Straw Hat pirates as soon as we can. If we don't, the Nobles will be furious with us, and you know we can't have that. That's why, the second the war ends, I want you to create a search party to find and eliminate all of those filthy pirates. I don't want even a trace of them remaining,"

"You want me to create this 'search party' right after the war?"

A wicked smile crossed his face, "Yes, after Whitebeard and his crew have been decimated, take which ever Marines are still alive and find those damned Straw Hats."

She was stunned. The man in front of her wanted to take Marines who had just been through a war and put them on another mission without giving them time to heal or see their family. Though, that was not what scared Anka. It was that he was so vehemently going after her crew, even though they had been split up by Kuma and was, as far as the world was concerned, dead. It was almost as if he had some sort of personal vendetta against them.

"Is there a problem?" asked Bridger.

"No,"

"Good,"

He got up from his armchair and smoothed out the creases in his suit. He went over to his desk and pulled out several wanted posters, all for the Straw Hats.

"I'm sure you already know what they look like, but burn these faces into that brain of yours. I know they're disgusting, even to look at but, it's for true justice. These repulsive pirates think that they can do whatever they want, but we have to show them that the Navy aren't pushovers!"

"With all due respect," she said in a forced manner, "The Straw Hats have been temporarily divided. Shouldn't we be focusing on the war?"

"Are you undermining my authority?" he slammed his hands on his desk, "We have to destroy the remains of these revolting criminals as soon as we can! We have to crush their bones into dust and rip their names from history! They dare think that they can stand up to me?"

She clenched her fists in annoyance. He wouldn't stop talking about how awful the Straw Hats were. As his rant continued, Anka became more and more enraged.

"Those pirate scum! To think they even breathe the same air as I do make me sick. And to think that they have the nerve to challenge the World Government! The people who act in the name of justice! Those criminals deserve to die a dog's death, don't you think, Hozuki?"

"I think you need to shut the hell up," she muttered. Before she could think about it, traitorous words escaped her mouth, filled with emotion.

"What did you say?"

"I said," she inhaled sharply, "shut the hell up you bastard. You think that the Navy and the World Government act purely out of justice but the truth is, you lot are worse than pirates."

"You must be joking, Hozuki. That's ridiculous, me the same as a-"

"Shut up,"

With one swift motion, she gripped Bridger by the throat and pushed him to the ground putting all her weight on him.

"Hozuki, wha… what are you doing?"

"Do you know why you're worse than a rampaging, pillaging pirate? It's because at least pirates know that what they're doing is unjust. You people, you pretend that you're doing the right thing when all you're doing is trying to keep up your reputation. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you-"

The door burst open, with dozens of Marines pouring in. The suddenness of it had taken Anka off guard which left her susceptible for an attack. The Marines pushed her off Bridger and threw her onto the ground face first, taking off her hat, sunglasses and pendant. They pulled her arms behind her back and shackled them with sea prism stone.

"What is this?" she gasped.

"This," Bridger laughed, "This was all a setup, you idiot criminal!"

There were two Marines holding her down as Bridger walked around the room laughing maniacally. He looked absolutely overjoyed at the scene in front of him.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Wow, you really are an idiot! I set this whole thing up! Calling you here, talking to you, saying all of those things I knew would get you all riled up! And now you've proved all the things I said to be true! All of you pirates are barbarians. Though, you're not just a pirate are you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she heaved. With the weight of two Marines on her, it became difficult to breathe.

"Oh you know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you've heard of the massacre of Yutaka Island in the West Blue. Of course you've heard it; you were the cause of it!"

Anka's breath hitched in surprise. "How did you-"

"Oh you did so many horrible things before you became an infamous criminal, all of this serves you right! Did you really think that you could continue using that stupid disguise forever? Though we don't know what you did with the real Hozuki, we could tell from day one that you were a fake. The only reason we didn't execute you was because of your father,"

"My… my father? What the hell does he have to do with this?"

"Oh, so daddy never told you?" he picked her up by the hair and pushed her against the wall.

One of the Marines that had held Anka down began to speak, "Chief Bridger Sir! It's not safe to-"

"I know what I'm doing!" Bridger snapped back. He turned back to Anka and threw his head back in a laugh. This was her chance.

She head-butt him as hard as she could and he immediately let go of her. Though she was handcuffed, she managed knocked down several Marines in her attempted escape.

"Catch that bitch or I'll have you all fired!" yelled Bridger.

The Marines crowded around her in a feeble attempt to stop her, but she had managed to overpower most of them. She actually had hope that she would be able to escape from here alive, but then reinforcements came along. A large man with an equally large club ambushed her from behind. By the time she turned around, she lost consciousness.

* * *

Anka woke up to a symphony of blood curdling screams and several bruises. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim atmosphere, but even then, she couldn't tell where she was. There were a group of men, all in unfamiliar uniforms surrounding her and two dragging her by her legs.

"The prisoner is awake," said one of the men.

"Hey scum," the other said as he kicked her in the side, "Get up,"

She complied and shakily rose to her feet. As soon as she did, an intense pain washed over her body. She had guessed that while she was knocked out, Bridger had unloaded his anger on her.

"Where am I?" she asked.

One of the men snickered, "You're in Impel Down, or hell for you,"

"This is what hell looks like? I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of disappointed. I thought there would be much more fire and demons."

"Just wait and see,"

So she waited and she definitely saw. What she saw was a vat of boiling liquid which she was apparently going to be dunked into as some sort of "ritual". Seeing a whole line of people get submerged in the boiling fluid wasn't helping her nerves.

As she approached the vat, several of the uniformed men started to chatter amongst themselves. From what Anka heard, there were some people who didn't even bat an eye when they had their "bath", unlike the others she had seen before her. This got her thinking that it wouldn't be that bad, but she was completely wrong. As soon as they pulled her out, she was screaming bloody murder. She was being boiled alive after all.

After her cleansing, she had been taken to a large lift to be transported. Again, there were several men in the same uniforms surrounding her.

"So, those uniforms look pretty spiffy. You think I could pull it off?" she joked.

"Shut up," said one of the men.

"Oh come on, you think I can get a costume change?"

"Maybe when you're dead,"

"Wait," she paused in thought, "If this is called hell, aren't I already dead?"

She continued this same annoying behavior all the way down past five levels and into the sixth level from the top. Once the elevator had stopped moving, she was pushed out and ushered to the back of the dimly lit room and into a cell. As she looked at her new companions, she gasped in shock.

"It looks like I'm in the company of celebrities," she grinned, "Warlord Jinbei and Portgas D. Ace, it certainly is a pleasure."

"And who might you be?" said Portgas through labored breaths.

"I know who you are," said Jinbei, "You were the former captain of the Silver Wing pirates. You started many needless battles that cost countless lives!"

"I'm honored that you know who I am," she chuckled.

There was a pause, and then Ace spoke again, "You're pretty happy for someone in prison,"

"You kidding me? I'm scared out of my damned mind,"

"Ace," said Jinbei, rustling against his chains, "This woman is nothing like you or Whitebeard. All she wants is to bring more chaos into this world like so many other pirates. Don't trust a word she says!"

Her smile faded, "Hey now, don't go lumping me in with the other guys on this level. That's like comparing a lump of coal to a diamond. Well, with me I suppose it's more like comparing a lump of coal to a shinier lump of coal,"

As the conversation between them continued, each person learned more and more about the other.

From what Jinbei had gathered, Anka was an over-confident and violent criminal who would only respond with snide remarks. However, sometimes it was difficult to tell whether she was being sincere or sarcastic. As he continued talking with her, he had finally come to the conclusion that she could not be trusted.

After a few minutes, their talking slowed to a stop and Anka felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her. Her eyelids grew heavy as she drifted in and out of sleep. It was difficult to measure how much time had passed; there were no windows or clocks. No daily routine or anything of the sort, so she had no idea how long she had been asleep for. It could have just been hours, or maybe even an entire day, but her lethargy stayed with her.

Until she was completely woken up when the unshapely Vice Warden appeared in front if the cell and started yelling.

"What the hell is going on here?" she muttered, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. She turned to see many people standing on the other side of the bars.

From what Anka could see, there was the Warden, the Vice Warden, a Vice Admiral whom she had known as Momonga, a prison guard, a large snake, and a down right gorgeous woman.

"Ah, Taverens Anka. It seems Chief Bridger's plan to capture you went splendidly," said Momonga.

"What are all these assholes doing here?" said Anka.

However, her question had been drowned out by the riot that had taken over the entire level. Apparently, the prisoners were very fond of the woman who appeared to be in shackles. All of the men in the other cells were going mad, yelling and shouting at the woman.

"So she's the Snake Princess of Kuja. Hey! Move a little closer, won't you?"

"Turn around Hancock!"

Then Anka understood. The woman in front of her cell was the Warlord Boa Hancock, the most beautiful woman in the world. Anka couldn't help but gawk at her. The descriptions she had heard of Hancock were nothing in comparison to the real thing. She was stunning, from her hair all the way down to her ankles, she was the most beautiful being Anka had ever seen. Her raven hair, her crystal blue eyes, her…

No. Anka shook her head. She shouldn't get distracted now like all of the other idiots in this prison. In fact, they were going so over board with accosting Hancock that Magellan had to intervene with his poison breath. Hancock took advantage of the chaos to tell Ace something, but Anka couldn't make out what she was saying to him.

When the madness had calmed down, Hancock had finished speaking with Ace and left without another word.

"So Ace, will you tell me what she said to you?" asked Jinbei.

"She said," he gulped, visibly shaken up, "that my brother is here,"

"You mean Luffy?" said Jinbei.

Anka stopped paying attention to what they were saying. Ace was Luffy's brother? There was no way that was possible. It was almost insane to think about. And not only that, but Luffy was here at Impel Down? What was that idiot thinking?

"Wait, wait, wait, you're Luffy's brother?! And he's here in Impel Down to save you?!" she exclaimed.

"Do you know Luffy? Tell me," said Ace.

She nodded, "Yeah I do know Luffy. I'm part of his crew!"

"I had heard that Luffy's crew had a hand in breaking you out of Enies Lobby, but being part of that crew is absurd! Ace, I think it's safe to assume that both Anka and Hancock are pulling your leg," said Jinbei.

"Hey, I didn't lie! I really am part of-"

"So you're telling me she came all this way just to lie to me?!" he paused for a moment to calm down, "No, sorry. I know you mean well Jinbei, but honestly, my brother really would break into here. He's always doing reckless things like this and making me worry. Even when we were kids!"

Anka chuckled softly, "Jinbei, I know you don't trust me, but I'll tell you anyway. Luffy is one crazy and moronic kid, not even a day after saving me did he ask me to join his crew. If he knows that Ace is down here, there's no doubt that he would break into this hell hole to try and save him."

She was sure that Luffy was here in Impel Down. She had the utmost faith in Luffy, but even then, she couldn't help but feel worried about him. Hopefully, he had stayed under the radar, but knowing Luffy, that was highly unlikely. Though her worry for Luffy plagued her mind, she felt like she was forgetting something...

* * *

Law had lost his patience. She had said that she would be back in thirty minutes, but now she had been gone for over an hour. He had no way to contact her as she had left the transponder snail he had given her behind. Looking at her vivre card, he could see that the edges of the paper had worn down, almost as if it were crumbling away. He knew that it could only mean bad news.

Many of the Heart Pirates gathered around their captain, awaiting his orders. All of them were antsy, silently shifting their gazes from one another until one of them spoke up.

"Captain, what should we do?" asked Penguin.

Law closed his eyes in thought. She had said that they would meet at Sabaody if she took longer than her time limit. Even that seemed a bit strange to Law, she had most likely said it to make him feel more at ease with her going off by herself. Law knew full well her limitations; he knew flying to Sabaody from here would take over a day.

"We're going back to Sabaody Archipelago," he said.

Even though Anka owed him, he had to prioritize his crew above her. They couldn't stay in the same position for a long period of time and it was much too risky to follow her vivre card anywhere. He would just have to trust that she would be alright.

* * *

 **So that's the end of that chapter! This was really exciting for me to write so I hope you guys like the way that the story is headed. I know that my writing skills aren't the best, but hopefully the story itself is interesting enough to keep you guys hooked. It really does help me when you guys send comments and criticism so please do. It really does motivate me to actually write better and post more often so thank you so much to everyone that reviews this.**

 **A long overdue shout-out goes to the user sarge1130 for posting all those really in depth comments. Thank you so much!**

 **Well, that's all I had to say, so onto the next chapter!**


	9. Chapter 9

Ace had been taken out of cell to be transported to Marineford mere seconds before Luffy had made it to level six. With all of the exits sealed, getting to Ace began to look more and more unlikely. Until, one of the prisoners began to speak up. Though it was difficult to see, Anka knew who it was from the signature golden hook. It was the former Warlord, Crocodile.

"Please, have mercy on me!" yelled Jinbei, "I beg you to take me with you. I will be of great service! I've known your brother Ace since he first joined the Whitebeard pirates, he's a good friend! And I know you too, from all the stories he's told. I'm not like the others down here! I want to save Ace too! I'll put my life on the line!"

"Luffy," Anka spoke up from across the cell, "This guy is sincere, and I can guarantee that,"

A moment passed before Luffy responded. "Alright then,"

Soon, Anka, Jinbei and Crocodile had been released from their restraints and gathered in the center of the floor. This made Anka feel very intimidated; almost every person of this ragtag team towered over her, both in height and in skill. The person closest to her height –Luffy –was a crazy strong kid with incredible potential. She really couldn't compete

But that was not what worried her most. By her side was the ex-Warlord, Sir Crocodile, brandishing his signature golden hook and slasher smile. Anka felt a certain nervousness overtake her as her hands began to ever so slightly tremble. She couldn't help it; Crocodile was her one of her long-time idols. Ever since he had become a Warlord, she had always dreamed of one day meeting him, along with most of the other Warlords.

Her nervousness was replaced with a bubbling excitement as the group made their escape from Impel Down. Seeing Crocodile fight alongside her was one of her dreams. This was using the term "fight" loosely though, since Anka was too busy being star struck by the madness around her.

Within record time, the entire mob of prisoners and pirates had made it to the one and only exit from Impel Down. However, freedom did not come as easily as one would have hoped. All ships docked at the entrance had been tactically moved, leaving the criminals with no means of escape. Or so the navy thought.

Jinbei, their saving grace, had used his resourcefulness to fashion a makeshift raft from the large wooden doors. Many of the prisoners were too chicken to actually get onto the door, so Anka was one of the first people to jump aboard the raft, followed very closely by Crocodile and his well-known associate Daz Bones. Strangely enough, they were also accompanied by a man named Buggy whom Anka had never heard of before. However, he seemed like a big deal since all of the prisoners were making a big noise about him so Anka didn't question it.

With the use of a powerful fishman move from Jinbei, the other four had found themselves on one of the battleships and began a fight to take control of the vessel. The fight was relatively easy and Anka had barely lifted a finger before it was all over.

Soon, they were off and headed towards Navy Headquarters, where a violent and destructive battle would soon take place. But Anka was preoccupied with her own thoughts at the moment. She began reminiscing about when her extreme idolization of Crocodile had started as she stared blankly at the ocean.

She was in her late teens when she had heard about Crocodile. It was from an article in the newspaper, describing how one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Crocodile, had saved the Kingdom of Alabasta from a crew of thieving pirates. As these reports began to plague the papers, Anka saw him more and more like one of the hero's from her collection of fiction. That was when the adoration began.

As time passed, this worship of Crocodile grew and grew, and then, his secret was revealed to the world. He had actually been the boss of a large crime organization and had planned –and almost succeeded –the takeover of Alabasta Kingdom through framing the King for the current drought.

However, unlike most other Crocodile fans, this did not deter her adoration of him. If anything, it only made her worship him more. Having such an intricate plan and such control over the citizens of Alabasta greatly impressed Anka.

Anka had been so busy with her own thoughts that she barely noticed the commotion going on around her. When she had finally snapped out of it, she found that the entire ship was swaying very violently on a wave which they had been attempting to ride. It actually seemed like they were succeeding when they entire wave itself stopped moving.

Everyone else seemed equally confused until they looked down into the water; or rather, the water that had been frozen into ice. It was quite obvious that the only person who could have done this was Admiral Aokiji.

Amidst the utter confusion, the faint ring of a transponder snail could be heard. Immediately, an announcement was broadcasted for all to hear. At first, all that was said was a bunch of random codes that no one could make sense of. But then, it became clear.

"All navy units," it said, "once all units are in place, we will move forward the schedule to execute Ace. That is all!"

Without further arguing and before Anka could even say a word, she found herself falling face first into a very violent battlefield. For some reason, everyone on the ship had thought it would be a good idea to break the ice on which the ship was stuck on; of course, this lead to the inevitable crash. She only had a split second to sprout her wings before she had become a pancake.

Soon after the ship had fallen and all of the criminals had regrouped, Crocodile made a bee-line directly for Whitebeard, but before anything could happen, Luffy sped forward like a bullet and attacked Crocodile.

"You little punk! You came here to save your brother?" yelled Whitebeard, "Do you have any idea who we're up against? A squirt like you is gonna get slaughtered real easy!"

Anka knew that this would not sit well with Luffy.

"Shut up! You don't know; you don't even know me! I'm gonna be the one to rescue Ace!"

Everyone stood there, completely stunned.

"He's competing with Whitebeard?!" said both Ivankov and Buggy.

Anka almost fell out of the sky from laughing so hard. Luffy was just too unpredictable for these unsuspecting people.

Anka landed heavily on the bow of the ship which was half sunken. She realized that it was a fantastic place to view the war. As Anka's eyes adjusted, she staggered back. It was stunning, the damage that had already been done. The sounds of battle filled her ears and the smell of blood and decay wafted through the air.

How long had it been, since she was in the midst of a battlefield? She could hardly remember, but she knew that she had never seen a war on this large a scale. There were so many people, all fighting and killing each other without even a touch of remorse.

Without even realizing it, a huge smile broke out on her face. Adrenaline shot through her veins and a feeling of ecstasy overtook her mind. So many of the fighters here were the people she had only heard of through the papers, the people she had come to idolize over the past few years. Crocodile, Mihawk, Hancock, Marco, Jozu, Vista and even Whitebeard himself were all like gods in her mind.

By the time Anka had realized how stupid and idiotic she was being, Luffy had already made it pretty far into the battlefield already. She decided that she had spent enough time gawking and jumped into the battlefield. It certainly was not an easy journey to catch up to Luffy. From every angle, there was always an attack. It took so much of her concentration to deal with the random Navy fodder that she couldn't focus on anything else. Was Luffy okay? Was Ace okay? What was happening?

By the time she had made it to the execution platform, the entire thing had collapsed and been engulfed in a large explosion. Anxiety and worry overtook her mind.

"LET"S GO!"

Immediately, Anka's lips curled into a smile. She could recognize that voice anywhere.

"Luffy!" she yelled as she ran towards him and Ace, "You're always in the centre of it all aren't you?"

He laughed, "Let's move forward!"

"And it looks like you made it out fine as well; it looks like there was really no reason for me to worry then huh?"

He shot a pillar of fire at some oncoming Marines and laughed heartily, "And you made it out of that cell too," he paused, "And thanks for taking care of my brother, I know he can be a handful,"

She smiled, "No need for thanks. I'm part of his crew; it's in the job description,"

So the two brothers battled together with Anka following close behind. She couldn't help but feel dazzled by their teamwork and strength.

Then the worst happened.

Behind them a voice was heard yelling horrible things about Whitebeard. It was obviously a taunt, but Ace couldn't let someone badmouth his captain. When Anka turned around, she saw who had delivered the taunt. It was one of the admirals of the Navy, Akainu.

A chill washed over her body as soon as she realized who it was. Her knees buckled underneath her and she collapsed to the ground and began to shake violently. That man, he had to be the one…

The man who slaughtered her entire crew, stood right in front of her, about to kill another one of her friends. Yet she was too scared, too cowardly to even move, much less stop the attack. All that she could think of was her overwhelming fear. She had to run. Run as far away as she possibly could. There was no way, she couldn't stand up to him, let alone defeat him. And after the tragedy that he had induced, Anka was mentally broken.

And then, her world came crashing down on her. Ace had been killed, right in front of her, but more importantly, right in front of Luffy. She had let it happen again, she had let Akainu take something once again. What's worse was that this time, she didn't do a thing to stop it. She didn't pull Luffy out of the way, she didn't stop him from wandering out, and she didn't do a damn thing except watch it happen. And now, due to her own fear and incompetence, Ace lay there in Luffy's arms, uttering his final words.

How had this happened? Ace was free, and running away with both her and Luffy. They had pretty much made it and yet…

A deafening scream was heard throughout the battlefield. Anka wondered who it could be. It took her a moment to realize that she was the one screaming. She was finally silenced a Marine with a metal club hitting her in the side of the head. When she looked at the Marine, she figured something out, almost as if the Marine had knocked the idea loose from her head.

She had to kill all the Marines.

At first it started out as a whisper, then it grew louder and louder in her mind, until it was a roaring scream. That one idea became her core, her reason for existence, the only thing sustaining her. First she would start off with the foot soldiers and then work her way through the ranks until, she got to Admiral Sakazuki, then she would rip him limb from limb. She was done letting him take things from her.

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill…

She began with the Marine that hit her with the club. As she rose to her feet, she saw the Marine in front of her tremble in terror as she overshadowed him by her massive, intimidating form. And there, where Anka once was, stood a beast with an insatiable thirst for blood. Reaching out a clawed hand, the beast took hold of the Marine's head, and crushed it with an incredible force.

Few had ever seen it, but this monster was the full-beast form of the Silver Dragon devil fruit. After the massacre of Yutaka Island in the West blue, an urban legend surfaced which stated that anyone who had seen the face of the Shining Dragon would soon meet their demise. Many Marines who were gathered at Marineford at that moment had brushed off this strange legend saying that it was too ridiculous to be true. Now, they learned what truly started that rumour.

Anka was barely aware of what was happening around her. How much time had passed? Had any time passed at all? Or had it been hours, or even days? She couldn't tell. All she could feel was a burning hot rage.

Her head was spinning. All the screams and shouts around her moulded together and became muffled. But she wouldn't stop. No matter what came her way, a sword slash, a punch, even canon fire wasn't enough. No, it's not that she wouldn't stop; it's that she couldn't stop. She knew what would happen if she stopped fighting. She would crumble away, until nothing remained.

Then, from far away, she heard a familiar voice, "That's quite enough."

She knew that voice from somewhere, but who was it? She looked at the owner of the voice but couldn't see whoever it was clearly. Actually, she couldn't see anything clearly. She stumbled towards the voice for a moment before tears began to fill her eyes. How could she let this happen?

"I think you've had enough for one day," she heard the voice say as she tumbled to the ground as all strength left her body. She could feel exhaustion begin to overtake her senses as she fought to keep her eyes open. But sleep overwhelmed her, and everything went black.

* * *

 **Sorry it took so long for me to update this time! I ran out of my buffer and I'm also getting ready for exams.** **Also, I know that this chapter is quite a bit shorter than the others but I felt that it was just a natural place to end it.**

 **Hopefully I'll be getting into a more regular schedule for updating but I don't know...**


	10. Chapter 10

Anka once again found herself awakening in the cold metal room she had become so accustom to seeing. A bit too accustomed for her taste. She threw the covers onto the floor and jumped off the bed with haste. Only one thought consumed her mind.

Luffy.

Was he alright? Where was he? It was the only thing that mattered to her at the moment. She didn't even think to question why she was once again on the submarine. Nothing else was important.

She bolted through the narrow halls with a complete disregard for her own well-being. She hadn't even taken the time to assess her own injuries, which were numerous; the largest and most life threatening being the large slash that had been sewn up on her stomach. She didn't even realize the wound reopening or the blood that was slowly seeping out and soaking her shirt.

"SNAAAAAKE!"

What the hell was that? Once Anka finally reached the exit, she found that it was already open and could see the silhouette of Bepo as well as two others amongst the fog. She skidded to a halt a few feet outside the door and much to her surprise, found a very large and familiar snake. Where had she seen this snake before?

Her question would soon be answered as a large navy battleship emerged from the thick fog.

"Not good…" she could hear Bepo say quietly.

"It looks like a Navy ship!"

"Quick, go tell the captain!"

"Look! There's someone up there!" yelled Bepo, "It's a Warlord, Boa Hancock; the Pirate Empress!"

Anka immediately recognized her as the woman who had come to see Ace in Impel Down. Now she knew why that snake was so familiar. With a graceful leap, Hancock landed on the deck of the submarine. Anka noticed that she looked rather concerned, different from her calm and cool demeanor from Impel Down.

"Don't worry, I have turned all the Marines aboard into stone," she said, "So, what is Luffy's condition? Will he be alright? Can I help somehow? Anything at all?"

Anka was taken aback by her slew of questions. Why was it that the Pirate Empress was so worried about the status of Luffy? Why had she not attacked them? She was a Warlord after all. It then occurred to Anka that Hancock was the one who had informed Ace that Luffy was in Impel Down, but even that didn't make that much sense. What exactly was the relationship between this woman and Luffy?

"Gosh, I was afraid that the Navy was hot on our trail. But I don't understand, how did you know that the sub was gonna surface here and now?" asked Bepo.

"I simply had Salome," she gestured to the large snake behind her, "track you underwater,"

"Oh,"

"Don't go changing the subject!" Hancock snapped, "Luffy is all that matters!"

Bepo slumped, "You're right…"

The other two men yelled, "Seriously?"

Against her better judgement, Anka asked a question, "How exactly do you know Luffy?"

Hancock put her hands on her cheek and began to blush furiously, "Luffy is…"

Anka couldn't believe her eyes. The Pirate Empress, the woman known across the seas as an ice queen had feelings for Luffy? Maybe she was reading too much into the situation, but there was no mistaking that flushed look and embarrassed eyes.

Hancock snapped out of her daze, "What is your relationship with him? I beg of you, if he is hurt in anyway, please let me know at once!"

Before Anka could answer, Law walked out from the submarine.

"I did everything that I could," Law responded as he wiped his hands on a towel.

"Does that mean he'll be okay?" asked Hancock.

"For now, we'll just have to wait and see. However," he paused, "He took on a lot more damage than most could endure and there's no guarantee that he'll survive,"

"Trafalgar," called Anka, "Tell me what room he's in."

Law realized that this was somewhat uncharacteristic for Anka. Usually, she was loud and brash and ordered people around when she really wanted something. But this time, it seemed more like a request, a plea. This time, she was soft, like she wanted no one else to know, as if it were a secret. He told her promptly and she immediately rushed back into the submarine.

She made a bee-line directly to the room but was sure to open the door as quietly as she could. She could feel the back of her eyes prickle as she looked at her current captain. He was in bad shape, really bad shape. He had all sorts of needles and tubes poked into him. How could she have let this happen? Luffy was her captain, it was her duty to protect him, yet she failed so miserably. She looked over him for several minutes, but couldn't bare it anymore.

She closed the door again and solemnly made her way back to the deck. When she had returned, the navy ship had disappeared and was instead replace by the ship belonging to the Kuja Pirates.

"What the hell's happening now?" asked Anka.

Law was leaning against the wall near the doorway, "We're being escorted by the Kuja's to Amazon Lily so that Straw Hat-ya can recover," he said.

"Wait," said Anka, "Isn't Amazon Lily a 'women only' island or something like that?"

Law didn't even look at her as he answered, "I suppose we're an exception."

Anka pieced it together by herself. The way that Hancock acted earlier on the deck suggested that she was really worried about Luffy. It wasn't too big of a jump to assume that she had allowed the Heart Pirates to enter so long as they kept him safe. Luffy really did have some sort of magnetism that made people just want to help him, even the stone cold Pirate Empress, and a certain "Surgeon of Death".

Peering over the railing, she saw the large doors of the Maiden Island open. As they unlocked, a wave of screams and shouts erupted from the hordes of scantily clad women, all welcoming home their empress. Anka was thoroughly amazed. She looked and analyzed the crowds of people and sure enough, there was not a single man among them. The world sure was filled with interesting places.

"Hey that ship has men on it!" yelled one of the women on the island.

All of the men on the submarine however, were too busy gawking over the beautiful women to even notice that they were in any sort of danger. Anka groaned both in exasperation and disgust.

"Hey, you guys," called Law, "I would head back into the submarine if I were you, or else…"

As if on cue, an arrow landed right beside Law's head and imbedded itself within the wall of the ship.

"Hold your fire everyone! These men are not our enemies!" said Hancock, "Luffy is on that ship! The wounds he suffered at Marineford marred his body and spirit alike. Now he walks the line between life and death! It's terrible! Ladies, carry Luffy to our castle as swiftly as possible," she put her hand to her cheek and began to blush, "and never fear, I will nurse him back to health personally,"

"Just a moment, Snake Princess!" a voice was heard from the distance, "Allowing Luffy in is fine, but we can nyot let the other men aboard that ship step foot into Amazon Lily! We can nyot make exceptions!" an elderly looking lady said from the island.

"There is a doctor aboard that ship!" Hancock pleaded.

"Whether he is a doctor or nyot, no man is allowed to cross into our borders! Besides, think of the great doctors we already have that are women,"

Law looked at the older woman from underneath the brim of his hat. Obviously, he was not impressed in the slightest. If anything, he was a little bit annoyed, "Well, while we're on that topic; your equipment, do you have the medical technology that I have on my submarine? If Straw Hat-ya's wound opens up, he will die," he released a morbid chuckle, "But don't let my word stop you, if it's no big deal then take him,"

Anka smirked. Of course Law would play to their weaknesses and exploit them.

"Luffy would die?!" exclaimed Hancock, "I would wither away! I must- no, _we_ must do everything we can!"

Obviously the situation was not the best it could be. Jinbei had suggested that if there were no way they could stay on the island, than the only other option would be to let Luffy remain on the ship as they traversed the Calm Belt. It was quite clear however, that there were many issues with that; one being the numerous deadly sea kings that roamed the waters of the Calm Belt and two being the Navy who would eventually track down the submarine.

"Very well," the old woman sighed, "I suppose we must make another exception. You may stay in the bay of Amazon Lily. It will be safe there; the sea kings will nyot attack you."

The men on board sighed with relief. At first, Anka thought it was because they wouldn't have to be stuck in the Calm Belt with the deadly sea kings. However, she soon realized it was because they all wanted to stay because of the women, the sick bastards.

The Polar Tang was escorted along the coast of the island to a small bay which they docked at. Promptly, a barrier was established by the Kuja, separating a small part of land from the rest of the island.

"Aw, why are they doing that? We won't go into the island!" said a flushed Penguin. It was quite clear that he was already flustered from the women who were putting up the barrier.

"Yeah, we swear!" Shachi nodded with a violent vigour.

The women ignored the salivating men. Anka thought that was fair enough; hell, if she were in their place she would do the same.

Anka inhaled sharply. She could finally relax after the chaos that was Marineford. As she jumped onto the island, light-headedness over took her mind. As soon as her foot touched the ground she fell to her knees. Everything was spinning violently and her breaths were short and shallow.

"It looks like you've reopened your wounds. If it's not treated soon, you might die from hypovolemic shock," said Law flatly.

"Wh-what?" she said between laboured breaths.

"Blood loss,"

She put her hand on her stomach and sure enough, her clothing was soaked with blood. It was difficult to tell since the fabric was black but it was strange that she hadn't noticed it before. It must've been from when she was running wild through the submarine. Since then, her mind had been preoccupied with Luffy's well-being, so much so that she hadn't even paid any attention to her own. Now that she had the time to relax, she was feeling the repercussions of her reckless behaviour.

"Take her down to the infirmary," she heard Law say to one of his subordinates.

"No," she said, weakly getting to her feet, "I'm fine,"

"You won't be fine," he said, "you'll be dead,"

However, Anka wouldn't yield, "I'm _fine_ ,"

Law couldn't understand her train of thought. She most certainly would _not_ be fine. Considering how much blood she had already lost and the rate at which she was losing it, Law guessed she had about another five minutes maximum. He supposed that he could just treat her then since she would be unconscious, but why bother taking the risk when he could do it right now? Surely she knew that there was no way to just power through extreme blood-loss. If she did, she was much more idiotic than Law could have imagined.

"I don't need your help," she said, putting her arm firmly against the wound.

Only then did Law understand why she didn't want medical assistance. It was her impenetrable pride. Several times already had she been at the mercy of his medical expertise and this was the point where she wouldn't take it any longer.

"That pride of yours will end in your death, Anka-ya,"

She scoffed. She thought it was much more likely that Law himself would be much more involved in her death than her pride, for better or for worse; probably worse. Anka looked at him. Definitely worse.

However, Anka wasn't as stupid as Law thought she was. She knew that without any treatment, she would probably pass out within a few minutes. She had to do something fast and discretely so that Law wouldn't find out and scold her for her idiocy. She managed to come up with a viable excuse to enter the submarine without arousing too much suspicion and left without much of a hassle.

Luckily for her, most of the Heart Pirates were out on the island or at least out of the infirmary, so Anka had the entire place to herself. If some medic had been in there, she sure as hell would have hated to explain the reason as to why she was swaying so much. She had to sit down before she face-planted into the ground. She wasn't sure she would be able to get back up from a fall like that.

She lifted up her black t-shirt enough to see the wound on her stomach and held in the urge to vomit as she saw her own mutilated body. She had to calm down and think; what did people do to heal wounds such as hers? The first step seemed relatively obvious to her: she had to clean the wound.

She wiped away as much of the blood as she could and frowned. Much of the blood that hadn't been soaked up by her shirt had found its way to the hem of her pants. Well, she didn't have the time or the mental capacity to worry about something so superficial at the moment, so she shrugged it off and continued with the procedure.

What was next? No, she wasn't done cleaning the wound yet. She remembered vaguely something about people pouring alcohol on their cuts. Maybe she should do that.

She looked around the infirmary for something that looked like alcohol. Sure enough, she found a container with "alcohol" written clearly on it. On the label was also a large amount of small text, but Anka didn't have the time to be worried about the small stuff. She screwed off the cap and generously poured the alcohol onto her wound and immediately regretted it. It stung so bad that she yelped and fell off of the stool she was perched upon.

She pulled herself back onto the stool and hoped that no one had heard her. Again she poured the alcohol on the wound, but this time she was prepared. She tightly gripped the side of one of the metal railings at the foot of a bed as the pain grew. Once the entire wound had been cleansed, she let go of the railing, leaving several indents from where she had held it.

The next part she wasn't quite sure of. Was this the part where the wound was normally sewn up? Though it had been sewn before, Anka doubted she had the skill or dexterity required to perform such an intricate procedure. And there was also the issue of her skin being near impenetrable. If not for the sea prism stone the Heart Pirates had kept handily around, there would be no easy way to pierce her skin.

She settled for wrapping the wound tightly with bandages. But how tight was too tight? She had heard that it needed to be firm, but was she doing it too tight? It wasn't as if she had much help due to the situation she had put herself in, so she just did what felt right. She tied the bandages together in a very messy knot and re-covered her abdomen with the blood soaked shirt that was already beginning to dry and become crusty.

She made her way back out of the submarine and hoped that no one else had found anything strange about her disappearance. She was done looking weak and helpless in front of these people. She looked around with a subtle anxiety and was relieved to find that everyone was much too preoccupied with the beautiful women and the mountain of food they were carrying to even spare a glance towards her.

Law however, had managed to look uninterested in Anka, all the while watching her every move. He had indeed found it strange that she suddenly needed to go into the submarine. She came out looking no different, but he had known that something must have changed. His eyes immediately fell upon the strange lump that had mysteriously appeared on her abdomen. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of cloth that she had tied to her waist in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding be herself.

His eyes didn't leave her as she was served a bowl of stew by the numerous women. He himself had no appetite at the moment and was a little surprised that she had one at all considering her condition. She took a seat beside him looked into her food thoughtfully.

"Eat. You need to replenish some of your nutrients, considering how much blood you've lost,"

She sneered at him, "Whatever you say, _captain_ ," she drawled out the last world with a dramatic eye-roll.

The sarcastic emphasis on the word " _captain_ ," definitely irked him, even if he had remained stoic. Normally, anyone who had the nerve to do something like that to him would end up with their head no longer being attached to their body, but he supposed that it would be better to wait and do that at a later time.

Now that she was closer to him, it was fairly clear that she had come up with some sort of temporary fix for her life-threatening wound. It was laughable, the quality of the work, though he couldn't really blame her. In all the time that he had known her, never once did she show any interest at all in medical knowledge of even the most basic caliber. Not that she would be skilled in the area even if she tried. She had just appeared to be that sort of person, incapable of performing any activity requiring patience or precise movements.

"Three years is a ridiculously long time y'know," she said out of the blue.

He returned to staring aimlessly ahead, "Are you rethinking our agreement?"

She sighed and practically inhaled the rest of her food. "Maybe,"

Law wondered what thoughts had gone through her mind to bring up this topic again. Surely, she had already realized that the agreement had been lopsided from the beginning; that was the entire point.

"I mean," She exhaled, "I know I'm a hot commodity and all, but what's even the point of having me on your ship anyway?"

A soft hum permeated the humid air as Law thought through his response. Usually, Anka had confidence practically oozing out from her pores. Now however, she was questioning her worth. Law figured that this was most likely due to Luffy's current condition. She must have felt at least partially responsible for not saving him and allowing his brother to die.

"You're a good distraction," he answered.

She looked at him with a quizzical expression, "Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

He just smirked.

Before too long, the women from Amazon Lily had cleared up everything and were heading back. As they disappeared through the thick foliage, Anka wondered what Amazon Lily was really like. She took this time to follow the women; it wasn't like she would get in trouble. At least she didn't think so.

Law's eyes lazily followed Anka as she vanished into the dense jungle. What exactly did she think she was doing? She hadn't already forgotten about her wound that was probably still bleeding, right? Her shoddy work may have worked temporarily, but by the time she had actually reached Amazon Lily, she would be right back to the mess she was before. However, Law found no reason to go after her. That would only end up with him getting in unnecessary trouble and Anka laughing at him; if she were still alive by then. He trusted that the doctors there would have the ability to handle something as simple as a slash wound and closed his eyes.

* * *

Amazon Lily was a place that was bursting with life. Vendors were out on the street, shouting about their numerous sales and large variety of merchandise. Women roamed the paths, occasionally stopping to look at the vast array of weaponry or clothing. Anka absent-mindedly walked out into the paths and began to peruse the many shops.

As she walked around, the idle chatter that had surrounded her began to morph into hushed whispers. She looked around, wondering what exactly was happening and soon found that many of the women had stopped what they were doing to stare at her. One of the women walked up to her nervously.

"You were aboard that ship with all of the men on it, right?"

Anka was immediately put on edge, "Yeah…?"

Abruptly, all of the suspicious stares she had been getting turned into expressions of delight.

"So then, you know a lot about men?"

Out of context, this would have been one of the strangest questions Anka had ever received in her life. Considering she was on an island where men were literally banned, it was not as out of place.

"In comparison to everyone else here, I suppose so,"

"So you would know then?"

"Know what?"

The woman began to speak, but Anka had a difficult time understanding what she was saying. For whatever reason, Anka felt very dizzy again.

"S-sorry, what was that?" she said. Before she could even finish speaking, her vision became very blurry. Why were there two of everything?

She could hear the muffled voice of the woman speaking again, but was too preoccupied with her own issues to listen. There were several times where she had almost fallen down, but luckily enough there was a table nearby she could lean on. What was happening to her?

The answer became clear when she felt the pain from the wound on her stomach spike. She put her arm to her stomach and sure enough, blood was smeared everywhere.

"Call a doctor!" Anka heard one of the women call.

Through heavy breaths, Anka managed to grab her arm, "Don't. I'm fine."

Without any warning, Anka suddenly felt an arm around her. The next thing she saw was the clear blue sky as she was carried away. She wriggled around, trying to get whomever it was that was carrying her to put her down. The attempt was futile, so eventually Anka stopped moving all together. Whomever it was that was carrying her was immensely powerful, while Anka was clinging to consciousness by a thread.

All of her focus moved to staying awake. She had to. She couldn't fall asleep.

Not again.

* * *

 **So I decided to upload another chapter even though I just updated a few days ago so that I could make up for the month I missed. I also made this chapter longer than the last as well. Hopefully it doesn't seem too boring or out of place.**

 **Well, that was pretty much all I had to say. See ya!**


	11. Chapter 11

Law was unimpressed.

He had thought that the once feared 'Silver Dragon', a being known for leaving behind a trail of havoc and bloodshed, would possess fighting capabilities beyond belief. Instead, the girl in front of him barely had the battle skill of a field mouse, let alone a dragon. She looked irritated, like one criticism may send her tumbling down a path of inescapable fury.

Law was beginning to wonder if Anka was really worth having on his crew. He had thought that if the rumours of her viciousness were true, she would have at least been of some assistance. However, the only thing she was good at was being a huge pain in the ass.

Apparently, she had almost fainted from blood loss in Amazon Lily and had vehemently refused to get treatment in the village. The native women, exhausted from having to deal with her, had dropped her off in the bay for Law to take care of. Of course, she also refused treatment aboard the submarine. Either way, she seemed to be healing by herself just fine.

"Why the hell are you looking at me like that? You have some sort of problem?" said Anka, as she tried to hide the irritation in her voice.

Law's mouth stretched into a smirk.

Even though he was thoroughly amused, the fact remained that she was a relatively useless ally to have. Part of him wanted to leave her here in the Isle of Women so that he wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. However, there was also his inquisitive side that wanted to figure out the inner workings of her mind. His morbid curiosity wanted to crack open her skull and unspool her brains just so that he could understand what was going on in there.

"Okay seriously," she said, readjusting herself on the bed she was sitting on, "you're being way creepier than you usually are, which I didn't think was possible,"

Another long silence filled the room as Law pondered his next words. He wanted to illicit a strong reaction from her. He wanted to make her angry, more than she was now. He wanted to see if she still had any of that viciousness still inside her and cultivate it like a fruit tree.

"Weak people don't have a place on my crew," he said.

Anka took a few seconds to digest his words.

"Are you implying that I'm weak?" she said.

He smirked, "You're smarter than I gave you credit for,"

She clenched her fists hard enough to make her knuckles go white. But she didn't attack him.

Law wondered why she hadn't immediately gone with a jab aimed for his face. She wasn't flying into a fit of rage like he had wanted, which only fueled his desire to bring out her inner ferocity. But before he could aggravate her more, she jumped off her bed and straightened out her clothes.

"Y'know, I don't have to take this shit from you," and she left the room.

Law caught a glimpse of her face before she disappeared into the hallway and found a strange mix of emotion. Instead of the anger he expected, there was something undefinable. It almost looked like she was sick from the pained look in her eyes, but Law was very familiar with pained looks and knew that it had to be something else.

After seeing such a strange expression, Law was determined to figure out just what the hell was going on with this woman. He didn't want the opportunity of having a weapon like Anka slip through his fingers and if the stories were true, she would be a very valuable asset to his team. There was also that fact that he didn't want all the trouble he had gone through to acquire Anka to go to waste.

He wasn't quite ready to throw her out just yet. There was still so much information about her that he had not yet figured out. Besides the genocide of Yutaka Island and her involvement in the Silver Wing Pirates, Law knew next to nothing about her past. As a man who prided himself in his expansive knowledge, this large gap in information was irritating. And there was always the chance that she knew something that could be useful later on.

He would have to keep her just a little bit longer.

* * *

Anka huffed and puffed down the corridors and was more than ready to blow someone's house down. She so badly wanted to punch Law right in his smug face, but something had held her back. She refused to admit it, not even to herself, but the reason she didn't explode with rage was because she knew that he was right. She was weak, and she was sick of it.

She was sick of getting beaten and sick of waking up in a hospital bed. She wanted to go back to the days where hordes of mindless idiots would cower at her feet at the mere mention of her name. If someone had said her name now it would probably be followed by an eruption of laughter or confused silence.

She rubbed her eyes. She needed to stop screwing around and start training. Although, she hadn't legitimately trained in years, constant brawls had kept her sharp enough to defeat most opponents. Of course, exceptions always emerged, the most notable being Akainu.

As Anka kept recycling the same thoughts over and over in her head, a certain determination began to bubble within her, the determination to get stronger, strong enough to protect the things that she cared about. Without being completely aware of it, Anka's legs began to move with no real destination. All she knew was that she had to do something with this sudden burst of resolve.

Anka found herself back within the bustling Amazon Lily and hoped that this trip would be more successful than the last.

Without a real purpose in mind, she wandered around, hoping something would appear with the guidance she desperately needed. A part of her wished that she would come across a wise old lady who would impart words of wisdom that would help Anka find her path. What she found instead, was a large circular structure which served as an arena for fist fights.

Behind the counter in the entrance of the arena was a woman who looked bored out of her mind. The only thing she seemed to be doing at the moment was twirling a knife in her fingers and enjoying a cigarette which had already burned out..

"You wanna fight in the 'rena?"

A moment of silence followed as Anka realized that "'rena" meant "arena"

"Sure,"

The woman sighed and stabbed her knife into the countertop. She began flipping through various papers and shuffling files around. With a loud thud, she produced a haggard looking book in front of Anka and tapped a blank space near the bottom of a page.

"Name 'ere,"

With an unneeded flourish, Anka had scrawled her name in almost illegible writing. The woman looked in disgust at the scribbles.

"You fight tomorrow mornin'. Good luck, you'll need it," and with an almost eager aura, the woman went back to twirling around the blade.

Anka was surprised by the swiftness of the registration process and wanted to ask the woman more about it, but decided not to interrupt her while she was busy being bored.

When Anka left the village, the sun had already sunk passed the horizon, leaving the sky a murky blue. Rather than return to the bay where the Heart Pirates resided, Anka had decided to spend her night in the densely populated jungle that surrounded the town. At least there, she wouldn't be under the constant watchful gaze of Law.

She flew up to the top of a large tree and laid down on a branch sturdy enough to hold her weight. The relative silence of the jungle was comforting. This would be the perfect time to have a smoke and relax. As she rummaged through her pockets to satiate her craving, her fingers fell upon a small pouch. She pulled it out and realized that the pouch was filled with a couple of rumble balls Chopper had made for her.

It was surprising that she still had the pouch in her possession considering everything that had happened. Either way, learning how to use the drug would definitely help in her mission to grow stronger, even though the whole process was quite tedious. Anka wondered if there was a way that she could do the transformations without the use of the rumble ball but quickly realized that tampering with drugs was beyond her limited knowledge.

She pocketed the pouch again and swore to herself that she would start training with them tomorrow.

As she went over her training regimen in her head, her thoughts became less coherent and found herself dozing off. Eventually, the sleep became too much and she faded into the abyss of slumber.

* * *

Back in the submarine, Law –as usual –was hunched over his desk in his dimly lit room, pouring over medical textbooks which used words like ' _sphenic_ ' quite liberally. Eventually, his concentration began to slip and he leaned away from his table.

A rhythmic knock emanated from his door.

"Come in,"

The door opened and behind it was Varune who did maintenance on the submarine. He usually kept to himself which was a much needed trait in this crew of loudmouths.

"Captain, your dinner," Varune said as he placed the tray delicately on a side table.

He began to exit the room, but Law called him back.

"Before you go, I'd like to get your thoughts on something,"

"Of course, captain,"

Law tapped his fingers on the table, "What are your thoughts on the newest recruit?"

Varune looked up thoughtfully, "Taverens? Well I don't really know her that well so it's hard to say…"

Law looked unamused. Varune, realizing his captain's displeasure, began to search for a better answer.

"Ah, well I mean, from what I can tell, she seems pretty reckless and, uh, a bit slow I guess. But, from what we all saw at Marineford, I feel like she might be useful, maybe. But I've never really spoke to her before so I don't really know,"

That seemed to be a better answer. Law ruminated on Varune's thoughts for a while and then dismissed him. It seemed that there was someone else on his crew that agreed that Anka had some potential hidden somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind. He wondered what the rest of his crew thought about Anka.

He was sure that no matter the circumstances, Penguin and Shachi would argue that she stay, just for the female company. It was a strange thought, considering they were usually too scared to actually approach her. Not that she would treat them well even if they did have the guts to talk to her.

Law put away all of his medical texts and began to eat his meal. As he ate, he had figured that he would have enough time to decide Anka's position in his crew, especially when taking Straw Hat's current status into account. He would just have to wait and see.

* * *

 **Okay, so I know it's been a while since I've posted, but as usual, life finds a way to get unnecessarily busy. I've also had to deal with a myriad of screw ups in terms of technology and everything. I've also gone through a phase where I have realized that my writing is pretty crap so I'm trying to get better and hopefully that'll show in the next chapter.**

 **Well, enough excuses for now, hopefully the next chapter will come out a bit sooner than this one.**

 **I've also seen the reviews and yeah I know that Anka's character is pretty sucky right now but there's a reason for that which will soon become apparent in upcoming chapters. This chapter right now was actually supposed to come out after an entire story arc that happens in Amazon Lily but I realized that I don't want this to be the kind of story where random story arcs happen for no apparent reason and also don't have much influence on the plot.**

 **Anyway, enough rambling for now. Hope you enjoyed!**


	12. Chapter 12

If Anka had to sum up her life in a single word, "failure" would be the first to pop into her mind.

Several fights in the arena and her training with the rumble balls were yielding no immediate results, and Anka's destructive tendencies were flaring up with incredible frequency. The frustration from her lack of progress was becoming overwhelming, to the point where she would burst into fits of violence with the slightest provocation.

In her brief moments of tranquility, she spent her time alone, looking up at the clouds. It was familiar and comforting, curbing her constant anger. She always used to cloud gaze with one of her best friends and a member of her crew, an ambitious man known throughout the sees as Fenn "Silver Tongue" Fletcher. His epithet -though surprisingly fitting with the theme of the crew -was cause for continual teasing. The jibes came mostly from Anka, as she found constant amusement at the accuracy of the name, especially since he had been the one to convince Anka to become a pirate in the first place.

She remembered sitting beside him on several occasions, and watching the clouds lazily drift by. For a man as restless and anal retentive as he was, cloud gazing was the only time he could relax. His perfectionist attitude was reflected in the way he dressed; an immaculate black suit, free of even the smallest speck of dust.

"Hey, you even listening?"

Anka looked over at him, studying his every feature. Neatly parted hair, green eyes, and a slick smile. It had to be him.

"You alright? You're kinda spacing out on me," he said.

"Anka inhaled. It even sounded like him. "I'm good,"

He kept talking, but even when he was alive, Anka never listened. Just seeing him was good enough.

"What's with that stupid look on your face? You know, if you keep smiling like that, someone might think you actually like hanging out with me," he said.

"As if that could ever happen, Silver Tongue"

They both laughed.

"But seriously, what's got you in such a good mood?"

"It's nothing,"

"I mean, you'd think after letting us all die you'd be a bit more downcast,"

Her breath hitched and the blood pumping through her veins turned icy cold. Monstrous guilt began crawling up her spine.

"Really Anka, you don't have any right to be alive right now,"

The smell of rotting flesh filled the air, smothering her every sense.

"What kind of captain are you? How could you abandon us all?"

The guilt had wrapped its way around her lungs, threatening to tighten its grasp.

"Why didn't you save us?"

His skin began to slip off his bones, almost like he was melting.

"Why didn't you save us, Anka?"

The guilt continued to squeeze the air out of her lungs, until finally…

Anka jolted awake, not even realizing she had closed her eyes. Frantic and disoriented, she was overcome with a crushing sense of nausea. It took an astounding amount of control just to roll over, so she wouldn't vomit all over herself. While the nausea soon subsided, the uneven and shallow breathing remained. She tried to force her body to calm down, but it was no use. The guilt was almost too much to bare. Why hadn't she done anything to save them? Why was she so useless? If she had just done something differently…

She needed to take her mind away from this. She had been through that thought process before, and every time she would always dig herself deeper into a frenzy. Anything to distract her, anything. Her mind rifled through her past, something to take her mind off the debilitating guilt. Finally, she found a memory which brought a sense of ease. It was a story, a dumb little rhyme from a book her mother used to read to her when she was upset. It had been a long time since she had heard it, but there was still comfort in the familiar phrases.

"One stalk," she began, remembering the reassuring touch of her mother, "two stalk," she said, her mother's warm and affectionate voice echoed through her mind, "all for a coin," she could feel her body relaxing, her breathing becoming regular, and the icy guilt which had wrapped its way around her heart began to retreat to the abyss it came from.

The story was about a farmer who worked very hard to tend to his crops, but received mediocre compensation for his labour. Despite his poverty, the farmer was happy with what he was doing, and even went so far as to say that he would have been a farmer even if he received no money at all. Anka had always admired the perseverance of the farmer, and had even told her mother that she would become a farmer when she grew up. Looking back on it now, there was no way that she could have lived the sedentary life of a farmer while the exciting and adrenaline-inducing life of a pirate was still an option.

She pushed herself off the ground, legs still wobbling. She craved a drink, or several. But she was scheduled for another fight in the arena soon, and being inebriated wouldn't help her odds. The walk to the arena would calm her down hopefully, enough so that she at least wouldn't get completely destroyed in the ring.

A string of consecutive losses trailed behind her as she made her way back into the bustling village of Amazon Lily. Part of Anka wondered why she was even going through the trouble of returning to the arena, as it seemed that the fights weren't helping her in any way. Yet she couldn't stop herself from entering the stadium, almost as if she were an addict and the drug was getting her ass handed to her.

Before entering the stage, there was a small prep room, a place for fighters to ready themselves for the impending battle. For Anka, it was a place for the other fighters to poke fun at her and constantly bring up the fact that she had yet to win even a single battle, as if she didn't know already.

As soon as Anka stepped out into the public eye, the entire crowd started jeering. The audience wasn't interested in seeing a fight where the outcome was so obvious. Anka was the clear underdog, and the audience had paid good money to see a worthwhile fight, not one that would end so predictably. But if Anka had cared about what people thought of her, she wouldn't have become a pirate in the first place.

The other fighter was unassuming and average, and was introduced into the arena as Iza. She was only a little taller than Anka, and wore the same garb as the rest of the woman in the village. According to the other fighters, Iza had won her last three bouts, and was a talented fighter. They warned Anka to be careful if she ever wanted to win, but this was Anka, and being careful was the last thing on her mind.

"You ready to get your head crushed into the ground?" Iza shouted. She wore a sadistic grin on her face as she cracked her knuckles to threaten Anka.  
As the audience cheered on the other fighter, Anka exaggeratedly rolled her eyes.

The bell rung, and the match started.

Iza's attack came fast, a swift strike aimed at Anka's side. But before her attack could connect, Anka caught her leg, suddenly stopping all her momentum. She tried in vain to free her leg from Anka's iron grip, but Anka's hold only tightened. Anka utilized the moment as the perfect opportunity to throw Iza towards the wall of the arena, in the hopes that she would faint on impact. However, Iza managed to stop herself by anchoring her feet into the ground. In another second, Anka was in front of Iza, winding up her fist and ready to attack. Iza was quick to respond, and used Anka's forward momentum to flip her onto her back.

Anka noted that the sky was still scattered with clouds. But the calm image of the sky was overtaken by a blurred image. She blinked, and as the figure came into focus, her heart sunk.

"Fletcher."

He smirked, and the rest of the world stopped moving.

He crouched, resting his hands on his knees. "You deserve this."

Her throat began to close. "I know."

"You deserve worse than this."

"I know."

"For what you did to us,"

Her heart was beating furiously, and the icy feeling returned.

His eyes were filled with malice, devoid of the comforting warmth she was used to seeing etched into his face. His gaze pierced into her very soul, and she could feel the malevolence dripping from his grin. His face was covered in horrific burns. Some places were so mangled that his bones could be seen poking through his flesh. She couldn't bare to see him like this, so she screwed her eyes shut and repeated the story of the farmer in her mind.

 _One stalk… two stalk… all for a coin._

When she opened her eyes, the world began to move again, and Anka managed to gather the strength to stand up. But he was still there, in the corner of her vision.

He was always there.

But Anka couldn't focus on him for too long, as she soon saw something flying towards her face. At first, she had though it was something her opponent had thrown at her, but looking at the trajectory of the object, at seemed like it had come from the crowd. Anka dodged it easily, and upon closer inspection it turned out to be a rock the size of a fist. While she was examining the stone, something else hit her hard at he back of her skull. She lurched forward as another object hit her in the shoulder. The audience's jeers were becoming louder and louder as they all hurled both rocks and insults at Anka. They were getting impatient, they wanted a fight filled by blood and violence, not lying on the ground staring aimlessly into the sky.

Now, Anka could deal with the booing and insults, but now that the audience had physically gotten involved in the fight, her rage began to boil over. The stone in her hand crumbled under the immense pressure of her grip.

Over the incessant noise of the crowd, the hearty laugh of a woman could be heard. Iza was thoroughly enjoying herself, which only served to piss Anka off even more./p

"Okay, enough screwing around," said Anka.

Practically foaming at the mouth, Anka lunged towards her opponent. Iza had been so busy jeering with the audience, she hadn't expected the sudden assault. Anka wound back her arm, and with tremendous force, released it. The second her fist impacted with her opponent's face, she could feel the bones of the woman's nose crumple like paper. Iza was launched through the air, and before she could even touch the ground, she was out cold.

A sudden hush settled over the audience. Anka wiped her bloodstained hand on her pants, and waited for her rapid heartrate to decline. The audience was stunned with this sudden turn of events, but their silence was soon replaced by a gradual applause and then a thunderous cheer.

Finally, a win.

Yet she still wasn't satisfied with the results. She couldn't pin down why, but this wasn't what she wanted.

Anka found herself back in the prep room, sitting on a bench and replaying the events of all her previous bouts. Why had she come here? What was she hoping to achieve? If a win wasn't what she was looking for, then what was?

She raked her hands through her unruly hair, and growled in frustration. It was almost as if she was more aggravated than when she had lost. She froze with the sudden realization.

Happier when she lost? Why as that? Why was she happier losing than happier winning? The only reason that came to her, the only reason that would makes sense was that she wanted to lose. Of course, she wanted to lose, but more than that, she wanted to be beaten until she couldn't walk anymore. She had uncovered a subconscious hatred for herself purer and more profound than anything she had ever felt before. A dark cloud of emotion quickly followed her epiphany, overshadowing any positive feelings. Fletcher's face appeared again in her mind and his words replayed in her mind. She deserved to lose.

"Congratulations!"

A woman, petite and flowery, stood in front of Anka with a sugary smile plastered on her face. In her hands was a thick envelope being thrust into Anka's face. The woman was too bright for words, and drastically outshined Anka's darkening aura.

Anka took a moment to recover from her spiralling thoughts before gingerly taking the envelope from the woman's hands. "What's this?"

The woman tilted her head and her smile grew. She was the embodiment of the word radiant.

"It's your winnings from the match! Not a lot of people thought you were going to win so the winnings from the bets are pretty big,"

Anka decided to disregard the backhanded compliment and opened the envelope to find a thick wad of cash. There must have been at least half a million in there.

Before Anka could fully comprehend her situation, the other woman was already joyfully bouncing away, talking to other fighters who had won. Anka walked out of the stadium, dazed from her sudden wealth. Her money had been running low these passed couple of days, with copious drinking and her normal gluttonous behaviour. It was a surprise that she wasn't completely broke at this point.

And she did what she had always done when she gained a large sum of money; found the nearest bar and ordered the most expensive drink on the menu. She used the large influx of cash as a valid reason to get drunk, but she didn't really need an excuse to wade into the waters of alcoholism. Any day was a good day to drink excessively.

By the time the sun drifted below the horizon, Anka was slinking out of a bar with a slight buzz. At this point in her drinking career, she had gained a stunning tolerance to the effects of alcohol, and even with her large amounts of cash wasn't ready to spend all of it on a single night of drinking. Feeling alleviated from her sorrows for the first time in a while, she felt good enough to actually spend some time the Heart Pirates. She just hoped that the euphoria would last throughout the encounter.

* * *

Law had been painfully bored since they had landed in the Isle of Women. The rest of his crew had seemed pleased through their limited encounters with the local women, but Law needed more thought provoking action to feel satisfied. An itch had started to make itself known in the back of his mind, something only a battle could scratch. And to add to his unrest, Anka had not returned to the bay in a couple of days. He mused with the thought that she changed her mind and flew away, but decided that she had stayed this long. She also wouldn't leave her current captain just so that she could get away.

p class="MsoNormal"Today, however, would be different from the past few days. For the first time after a long gap of relative peacefulness, a storm was ushered forth, and the name of that storm was Taverens Anka.

She had stumbled out from the dense jungle, a sincere smile on her face. This had been the first time Law had seen such a genuine show of emotion from Anka, other than rage, and it brought a strange and undefinable feeling that he didn't feel like dissecting at the moment.

As usual, the Heart Pirates were immediately put on edge when she had made her presence known. Law had expected her strange bliss to be converted into her regular state of annoyance, but that didn't happen this time. Instead, she smiled wider, and began to interact with the rest of the crew as if she had been a long-time friend. And as with most pirates, the Heart Pirates decided not to think about her drastic emotional change in turn for easy-going fun and partying. Law however, was perfectly fine sitting at the base of a tree and watching the festivities from afar. He found much more pleasure in observing from a distance and trying to understand why Anka was acting the way she was. Finally, among dull days that were beginning to blend together, a new puzzle had appeared before him.

And it appeared that the puzzle and noticed his serious expression and his unbreaking gaze. Prying herself away from the noise, she sauntered towards him. She stopped right in front of him, a huge grin breaking out over her face. Of course she would find amusement in the physical act of looking down on him. After thoroughly relishing the moment, she sat down next to him, leaning in slightly to compensate for the noise.

"Do you ever get tired of being creepy or is it just a continual thing?"

Despite the sudden joyfulness that had been seemingly injected into her personality, she still retained that sharp tongue and general disgust for him. But now that she was closer, he pinpointed the source of her gaiety. Her breath dripped with the smell of alcohol, and the fluidity of her motions meant that she was a little drunk. Now it made sense; she couldn't have acted so friendly towards the Heart Pirates if she was sober. It was mainly the alcohol talking.

"But you still decided to come here and talk to me," he said.

"And you were the one who kept staring you damn creep,"

Law turned to look at her. Despite her quick-wit, she seemed distracted and distant. Her eyes kept darting to the corners of her vision, almost as if she was expecting someone to be there. He wondered what had happened to her in the time she had been away to make her so on-edge. She almost made it seem like someone was following her. He decided not to question it, it's not like she would reveal anything to him anyway.

Eventually, the party died down, with most of the crew members passed out face first in the dirt after too much drinking. Anka had fallen asleep mere moments after sitting down which Law found amusing yet predictable considering the amount of alcohol she had ingested.

Law went back into the submarine to check on Straw Hat's current condition. It had been about two weeks since they had come here, and he seemed to be slowly improving. But more than the physical injuries, Law wondered about the mental scars left unhealed in the boy's mind. But it's not like it really mattered to Law anyway. He had done his part, anything else was up to Straw Hat alone.

* * *

By the time Anka had awaken from her slumber, the sun was already high in the sky. She had a mild headache from the night before, but the hangover wasn't as bad as it normally was. Worse than the hangover was the soreness from sleeping against a tree all night. When she finally stood up, a peculiar scene greeted her. There was a large hole in the barrier that sectioned off this area of the island, and the submarine had been severely damaged.

"What the hell happened here?" she asked one of the crew members who had gathered around the odd gap in the barrier.

"You didn't hear what happened?"

Anka shrugged. It had been made known to her numerous times that she was an extremely heavy sleeper, to the point that it may be a medical issue. But Anka only ever saw her unique skill as a blessing and a great excuse.

"It was Straw Hat!" the man yelled, "he went on a rampage and nearly destroyed our ship! We tried to stop him, but he was unstoppable. Kept yelling about his brother. He ran into the island through that hole. I wish I could go in there."

By the time the man had finished explaining what had happened, Anka had already ran towards the gap in the barrier, pushing passed the many men who were contemplating entering the island through the space. But before she could pass the barricade, Anka found her legs freezing in place, like there was some invisible barrier stopping here from going any further. She wanted to chase after him, to comfort him in his time of need. Yet, she couldn't lift her feet from the ground. How could she help him through his grief when she was still trying to overcome her own? How could she help her captain if she couldn't even help herself?

She was a coward. She knew that very well. Her captain was going through heavy emotional turmoil, yet she was too scared to even go to him in his time of need. It was pitiful.

Her self-reflection was cut short when some of the Heart Pirates near the coast began screaming. Anka's attention fell upon a sea king, huge, but dead, floating on the surface of the waves. A man appeared out from the ocean, making his way up to the island.

"Dark King Rayleigh?!"

As he dried off his clothes, Anka approached him, relieved that she had a good excuse for not facing Luffy.

"Ah, Anka! Luffy must be on this island then," said Rayleigh.

"Rayleigh, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I swam here to talk to you and Luffy,"

"Swam?" a crew member interrupted.

Rayleigh explained how his ship had gotten caught up in a storm and sank which forced him to swim through the Calm Belt. But while the others were busy being astounded by the tale, Anka couldn't get her mind off one topic: why would the Dark King want to talk to her? Before she could ask any further questions, Law interjected.

"We're leaving," said Law.

"What? What about Luffy?"

"Whatever happens to him now is in his own hands. Either his wounds will open up and he'll die, or he'll survive. I don't care either way,"

Despite having a good sense of Law's personality, his bluntness and lack of emotion still surprised her.

"How can you say you don't care? You spent two weeks here! Not that it really matters, because I'm not leaving until I see him."

"Have you forgot about our agreement?"

"No, just wait,"

Law was not fond of being told what to do. He contemplated taking her by force.

"And besides," she said, "you're going to the New World, and I promised I would go with Luffy and the others,"

"We aren't going to the New World."

"What? why?"

"Now isn't the right time. The One Piece won't be going anywhere,"

Anka was stunned into silence for a moment, but her competitive nature brought her senses back.

"If you can wait before going into the New World, then wait here just a bit longer,"

Their argument was disturbed when Rayleigh interrupted.

"Anka, let me offer you a proposal," he said, "do you think that if you and Luffy get back together with your friends, the result would be any different than now?"

Anka was unsure of what he was getting at. Rayleigh sensed this, and continued to explain.

"If you left with everyone, and went into the New World now, you would end up suffering the same fate,"

"So, what should we do?"

"Go with Trafalgar Law, and wait for a message. It should be clear then,"

"What? What does that mean? And what about Luffy? Do you really think that someone as impulsive as him would want to wait?"

Rayleigh chuckled at her slew of questions.

"Though Luffy is an unpredictable man, I'm sure he'll understand. He wouldn't want to go through something like this again," he said, "and even if he doesn't agree, in the state that you're in now, do you think you would even be of any use to him?"

Now that was a question that cut deep. Anka was shocked that her problems and incapability was so obvious that Rayleigh could see it. But she knew he was right, and part of her knew that joining up the Straw Hats again in her current state would only bring them down. Reluctantly, Anka nodded and sighed. Rayleigh was right, she needed time to get stronger, and according to Law, the Heart Pirates were staying in the first half of the Grand Line, so maybe she could use them to gain power. With sudden hastiness, Law ordered his men to pull Anka into the ship. They were met with resistance, as was the norm when dealing with Anka.

Rayleigh stood near the shoreline, holding on to Luffy's straw hat. As the crew prepared to depart, Rayleigh called out one last time.

"Also," he said as Anka was being shoved into the submarine, "you should visit your father,"

But before she could ask what he meant, they closed the door behind her.

* * *

 **Wow it's been a while since I uploaded. So sorry about that. As I re-read through the story, I find more and more parts that I think I can do a better job writing, so at some point in the future (but probably not before the next chapter) I might go through the story again and change up some parts (again, I don't think I'll be making any big changes regarding the story, but I'll let everyone know if something worth noting changes)**

 **Other than that, I've actually had some major formatting issues with this chapter for some reason, so if something is off or there is a mistake, please let me know.**

 **Thanks for reading and reviewing my story! I was actually motivated to post this chapter from reading the reviews, so a huge and heartfelt thanks to everyone who took that time to write down their thoughts, it really means a lot to me.**


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